Harry's Game (10 page)

He gave her mild sedatives, but had been unwilling to prescribe habit‐forming doses in the hope that time would eventually erode the images of the killing. He had been surprised and annoyed when she had told him that the detectives had been to see her again, a clear week after they had received her signature on what was described as the final and definitive statement she would need to make. She had told the doctor of the queer equipment they had brought, and how over and over she had been made to describe the man with the gun.

It had been sufficient of an ordeal for her, this last visit, to set back her recovery, and accordingly the doctor had phoned the Scotland Yard officer who was named in the papers as heading the inquiry. But such was the pressure on his time, and the size of his register, that he had taken the matter no further when told that no policeman had been to visit his patient in 46

the last nine days. He had blustered a bit when he was told that, protested about the obvious inconsistency between the police story and his patient's, and then rung off. It still puzzled him.

The Secretary of State for Defence was in his office early, clearing his desk for the start of a short holiday, and arming himself with persuasive and informed argument that he would need for his nine holes with the Prime Minister. The civil servant who was briefing

him on the missile gap and the sagging morale of denuded units in

" crmany continued his lecture in his usual professorial manner. He

id a turn of phrase that had infuriated a series of Ministers as the

vil servant had progressed upwards to his position of a Man Who

K,m Things. His role in the vast department was all‐commanding,

'ms power and influence huge. One of the smaller cogs in his well

iled machine was Davidson, and one of the less frequently men

oned properties on his books was the house near Dorking.

Tentatively the Minister spoke to him.

'That suggestion of the PM about the Danby killing‐‐you re icmber, putting a chap in there.

He'll want to know ... what's happening?'

'Yes. He phoned last week. I wouldn't worry about it, Minister. We're still going over feasibility et cetera at the moment. It's not a fast business, you know; not a thing we can successfully knock off overnight.'

'Nothing definite yet, then? You've already spoken to him? That's a bit odd, isn't it? On to you direct, and by‐passing me? He may be in charge of security and all that, but it's a bit off. What did you tell him?'

'That things were in hand. That he'd get a briefing the moment there was something to report, when there were developments.'

'I think you see me as some sort of security risk or something.' The Minister grimaced. The civil servant smiled generously. The subject was terminated. It was back to rocketry and more conventional theatres of war.

47

Twenty‐five thousand feet up, between Liverpool and the Isle of Man, Harry was working things out. The reality of it all had been brutally clear as he had stood in the queue waiting to be searched by the Securicor team at the departure gate. Whoever heard of an agent getting his own bags taken apart by his own bloody side? It was painfully clear why his promised Smith and Wesson would have to be picked up at the Belfast main post office, where Davidson was to send it to await collection. He tried to concentrate on his cover story. Merchant seaman going home after years away, land in turmoil, oppression over Jie minority. Time for all true Irishmen to get back to back, together to withstand the English bastards. Three hundred years post Cromwell, and nothing changed. Blood of martyrs on the streets again. Would anyone be daft enough to come back to that stinking hole, just because things were getting worse? Be out of their minds. Irish might be daft enough, have to be daft. One thing‐‐bloody English wouldn't come home, they'd all go off to Australia or South Africa. Wouldn't catch them risking their precious lilywhite backsides.

The story was as firm in his mind as it ever would be.

He lay, half awake, half asleep, in no man's land. What of the commitment he had taken on?

Motivation was vague and unthought out. It wouldn't be as strong as the other side's. No chance. Motivation was against the code with which he had been instilled. Officers didn't need motivating. It wasn't all clear.

Rights and wrongs, pluses and minuses, blacks and whites were all vague. In Northern Ireland things don't divide and coalesce neatly. That's too easy. What was it the politician had said?

"Anyone who thinks he knows the answer to Northern Ireland is iil informed." Good, that. Lot of ill‐informed types in the mess in Germany then. Came back with the solution worked out.

One big swoop, one big push, the tough hand, the gentle hand, the "saturate them', the "pull the plug and leave them'. All the answers, none the same, but all spoken with such authority.

Amazing how you can learn three hundred years" bigotry in four months looking after five blocks in a scruffy council estate.

Harry, heavy with sarcasm, had once congratulated a brother in uniform on the good fortune the other had in being able to see things so clearly. To be able with such confidence to apportion his blame and praise, culpability and credit‐‐that made him a lucky man. In Mansoura, just out of Sheik Othman, where the gunmen were running round while the boys in Ulster were still on their iced lollies and sing‐songs, it had been so much easier. The Red Cross man from Switzerland, in his little white suit, even with a big bright cross on his hat so they wouldn't throw a grenade at him from a rooftop, had come to visit the unit once. He'd said to the colonel something like, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." The colonel 48

hadn't liked that. Pretty heady stuff, they all thought in the mess. Such rubbish. Terrorists they were then, wog terrorists at that.

But in Aden Harry had thought it was obvious to even the most stupid that British society was in no way being protected by Their efforts ... business perhaps, but nothing else.

Whatever else men died for in the sharp staccato engagements of small arms fire, the green fields of home were a touch removed from the Mansoura roundabout picket, Checkpoint Golf or the Chartered Bank in Crater. As an Ulsterman, and so never allowed a posting

home to fight, Harry had often wondered whether soldiering there was any different to Aden.

Did all the stuff about duty, purpose and reason mean that much more just because the fighting was down by the local supermarket and not six hours away on a VC10? He reckoned he was as distinterested now in the welfare of the great body of society as he had been then. He had been given a job to do, and he was doing it because someone had to, and by a series of accidents he was better equipped than most.

But by the time the Trident was arching over the landfall to the south of Strangford Lough, Harry had decided he was not a little flattered he'd been asked. He had been chosen for a mission, after all, called for by the Prime Minister. In the close heat of the plane he thought of his wife, warmth and closeness flooding through him. It was a pity she couldn't share in his pride. The passenger across the aisle noticed the slow smile spreading across the cheeks of the man slumped by the window.

For a few more seconds Harry indulged himself, conscious of the softness of the moment. He knew from the other times of great danger that he had faced that he could cocoon himself in sentimentality for his family, for Mary and the boys. It was part of the mechanism of protection which Harry understood and cherished.

As the airliner began its appraoch across the small fields towards Aldergrove Harry fastened his belt strap, and let his thoughts turn to the man whose image was imprinted in his mind. He could see the man, could put flesh and colour and dimensions on to the dark lines of the photokit. The target. Was he an enemy? Not really. What, then, if not an enemy? Just a target.

Still to be killed, no question of that. Eliminate‐‐it rolled off Harry's silent tongue. It was the word he liked.

He was jolted awake as the wheels suspended below the wings banged down on to the scarred tarmac. The plane surged forward in the air at a little more than ninety miles an hour, bounced again, and began to slow with the application of the engine's reverse thrust.

Terminal 1, Heathrow, the first‐floor cafeteria. Davidson was breakfasting with the team who had come up to see Harry off. It was a subdued meal without the frills of conversation. Not 49

much had been said after Harry had disappeared towards the security checks. Davidson had muttered, almost audibly, "Gutsy little sod.'

'I'll take the bill," he had added, as they rose from the table, and then, as an afterthought, "I think we've told him all we could in three

weeks, but it's bloody little time. To do that job properly you'd need six months. And then you couldn't be sure. Always the same when the politicians dip their toes in‐‐short cuts. That's the order of the day. To come through with three weeks behind him he'll need to be lucky, bloody lucky.'

The anomaly of going to war in your own country was not lost on Harry. He came down the steep steps from the plane and hurried past the RAF regiment corporal, who held his rifle diagonally across his thighs, right‐hand forefinger extended along the trigger guard. There were coils of barbed wire at the flanks of the terminal building, sprawled across the flower beds that had once been sufficient in themselves to mark the perimeters of the taxi‐ing area. The viewing gallery where people used to wave to their friends and relatives was now fenced with high chicken wire to prevent a missile being thrown on to the apron; it was out of bounds to civilians, anyway. After getting his bag in the concourse Harry walked out towards the coach pick‐up point. Around him was an avenue of white oil drums with heavy planks slung between them‐‐a defence against car bombers moving their lethal loads against the walls of the buildings. He moved by a line of passengers waiting to take the Trident back to London. They stood outside, occasionally shuffling forward with their baggage. Up at the front the searches went on in two green prefab huts. Only rarely did the faces of the travellers match the brightness of their going‐away clothes: children silent, women with their eyes darting round, the men concerned with getting the cases to the search and then eventually to the plane.

Greyness, anxiety, exhaustion.

Harry climbed on to the bus, and was quick enough to ensure himself a window seat near the back.

By the time the coach had left the fields behind and was into the top of the Crumlin Road the man directly behind Harry was in full voice. Taking upon himself the role of guide and raconteur, outmatching those who lead crocodiles of tourists round the Tower of London and Hampton Court, he capitalized on the quiet of the bus to demonstrate his intimate knowledge of the campaign as fought so far.

'Down there on the right‐‐you see the small lane‐‐just round the corner where you can't see‐‐

that's where the three Scottish soldiers were murdered ... the pub ... the one that's blown up‐‐

the one we're passing‐‐they took "em from there and killed them down the

50

road when they were having a slash. There's nothing to see there now ... people used to put flowers, but not now, nothing to see except there's no grass in the ditch where they got it...

Army dug it all up looking for bullets, and it never grew since. Now on the left, where the road climbs up, towards the quarry, that's where the senator was killed ... the Catholic senator with the girl, they were killed up there, stabbed. Last year it was, just before the elections. Look now in front, there she is, the greatest city on earthr Down below, left, not hard left, that's Ardoyne ... over to the right that's Ballymurphy ... we're coming into Ligoniel now.'

It'll be bus trips for the Japanese next, thought Harry. Once they've stopped looking round Vietnam you'll be able to flog them Belfast. By special demand after the world's greatest jungle conflict, we offer you reduced rate to the longest‐ever urban guerilla war. Roll up! Roll up! Get your tickets now!

'Now wait for the bumps." The man behind was away again, as the bus had slowed to a crawl.

"Here we go now. See we're outside a barracks ... there on the left... they all have bumps outside now... stops the Proves belting past and giving the sentry a burst with a Thompson.

They used to have luminous paint on them, the bumps, that's gone now ... if you don't know where they are you give the car a hell of a bang ... hit one of those at fifty and you know about it ... that's Ardoyne, now, over on the left, where the policeman is. That's a sight for the Engish, policemen with bullet‐proof coats and machine guns ... won't use the army flak jackets, have their own. We cut across now, they don't rate going down the Crumlin in Ulster buses. We'll use the Shankill. Looks all right doesn't it, quiet enough? See that hole in the right? That's the Four Steps bar ... killed a fair few when that went up. Not a breath of warning. Look there on the same side, see it? That hole ... that was a furniture shop ... two kiddies died there‐‐not old enough to walk."

'Shut up, Joe, nobody wants to know. Just wrap it.'

Perhaps Joe felt he had given his virtuoso. He fell silent. Harry watched out of the window, fascinated by the sights. At the traffic lights the driver nudged up to the white line alongside a Saracen armoured car. Soldiers were crouched inside the half‐open steel back doors, rifles in hand. On the other side of the crossroads he watched a patrol inching its way through the shopping crowds. On all sides were the yards of pale‐brown hardboard that had taken over from glass in the display windows of the stores. The policemen here had discarded their submachine guns, but let their right hands rest