Pray for Us Sinners (7 page)

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What Moira Ryan had left behind in the pocket of a paisley-patterned dress was much more primitive than Semtex. It was a variant of the Durex bomb, invented in Derry in 1970. Sulfuric acid, sealed in a vial of candle wax, was placed inside a condom—usually a Durex condom, hence the name. The sheath was placed inside a container full of sodium chlorate, a common weed killer. When the device was squeezed, the acid was released, and it ate slowly through the latex, giving the bomber time to escape before it ignited the chlorate.

Devout Catholic members of the PIRA refused to use these devices because condoms were proscribed by the Church. Moira had had no such scruples, and in her device the candle wax had been replaced with a small glass ampoule. Twisting the base of the lipstick advanced a screw that crushed the glass.

She was safely at home when the latex gave way. A sheet of flame set fire to the tissues, and in seconds the four dresses were ablaze with greedy tongues licking at the dressing-room walls.

A startled shopper noticed tendrils of smoke escaping from beneath the changing-room door. She screamed and pointed.

The shop assistant ran to the door and opened it. Flames roared out like dragon's breath, roasting her alive.

Outside, the blind man caressed the notes of “The Town I Love So Well” from his saw, but the tune was smothered by the hoarse shouts of the shoppers pouring from the store's front doors and the “nee-naw, nee-naw” of emergency vehicles passing through gates in the eight-foot-high fence.

 

ELEVEN

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13

Marcus had been here in this semi for a week and a day. He sat in an armchair, wearing jeans and an American T-shirt, and stared at a blown-up photograph of rhododendrons on the wall—garish blooms frozen in time.

His funeral had been four days ago. Major Smith had attended, full of condolences as the army honour guard lowered a ballasted coffin. It must have been very hard on Mum, traveling by herself. He wondered if she would be back in Texas by now.

He'd had time to stifle his disappointment that his father did not attend. Sometimes Marcus wondered what kind of a man his grandfather had been—must have been pretty bloody Victorian to have raised a son who could bury his feelings so deeply he deliberately avoided events that might call for some outward show. Grandpa Richardson had died before Marcus was old enough to really know him, but maybe that was why Dad was such a perfectionist, such a hard man to please, had been for as long as Marcus could remember.

Like the day Dad had wanted a six-year-old Marcus to walk on the old seawall beside Billy Caulfield's rowboat jetty in Bangor. The scene played in Marcus's mind, clear as if it were yesterday.

They'd been out together fishing. When they came ashore, Daddy said that rowing was hot work and asked if Marcus would like an ice cream.

“Yes, please.”

“You'll have to earn it.” Daddy stopped in front of a low sandstone wall. “Let's see you walk on the wall.”

Marcus swallowed. He knew the big boys walked on the coping stones, but it was an awfully long way down to the rocks below. “On there?”

“Come on. Up.” Daddy wrapped his arms round Marcus and hoisted him. “It'll be easy if you don't look down.”

Marcus peered over the edge. Below—miles below it seemed—waves broke over the jagged shore.

“Marcus, come on. Don't be a sissy.” His father's voice was taking on the tone he always used when he found some error in Marcus's homework, when he'd say, “If there's an easy way and a hard way, you'll find the hard way.”

Marcus stared at his feet. The wall seemed only inches thick, and the rocks …

“Are you going to walk?”

“I can't…”

“Hold my hand.”

“No. I want down.”

“Take my hand.”

“No, Daddy. I'm scared.”

A clock on the living-room wall made a whirring noise, bringing Marcus back to the present, yet he could still hear his own words—“No, Daddy. I'm scared”—could still remember his tears as Daddy lifted him off the wall and strode off for home. No ice cream. Stupid bloody wall. He'd even gone back on his own—three days later—scrambled up, and, heart in mouth, walked. He'd never told anyone, but he'd done it.

When he had grown old enough, he played rugby, just like his father, and found to his delight that he enjoyed his ability to ignore the possibility of being hurt. He played well enough to represent his university, but not well enough to be picked for the provincial side, never mind Ireland. His father had been capped twice.

When the time had come to choose an army specialty, that disregard for danger led him to bomb disposal. He'd tested himself again and not found himself wanting for courage—until his brush with death. Now, with a bit of luck, he would be able to move on to the SAS with no loss of face. That bit of luck would come if he worked hard enough at his new assignment. He was working as hard as he could under the tutelage of Major Smith and when he was left alone to digest the information about Canada and the oil industry, the Catholic Mass. He'd even learned the Catholic kids' doggerel version of the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, serve us all a piece of cod.” The childish substitution was certainly more comforting to chant than the line that belonged in its place: “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Notes were strewn on the table, along with the green folder. Mike Roberts's folder. He hadn't mastered every detail, but he was getting there. It helped that Major Smith refused to call Marcus anything but Mike or Roberts. It was a funny feeling, having two men living in the same body, having to stifle one and encourage the other. Perhaps this is how schizophrenics feel, Mike thought.

He looked at his watch. 0855. Major Smith would be here at 0900. Exactly. Marcus glanced back at the Timex he'd been given to wear. Mike Roberts would have a cheap watch, but Marcus missed his Rolex. It had been a present from Dad when Marcus finished his seven-month course at the Kineton School of Ammunition. Dad attended that passing-out ceremony. He handed over the watch with a gruff “well done,” and Marcus glowed.

“Where are you, Roberts?” The major called from the hall.

Marcus checked his Timex. 0900. Exactly. “In here, sir.”

The major sat in his usual armchair. “Getting a handle on the bandits?” He pointed at the opened briefing notes. “Good. You've only got three weeks until your finals.”

“Finals, sir?” It sounded like an examination.

“And if you don't want to end up like some of the Freds, you'd better pass.”

“Freds, sir?”

“Drop the ‘sir.' Name's John.”

The invitation to dispense with military formality was a concession. “Thank you. Go on, John.”

The major lit a cigarette. “Thought I'd give you an idea of what you'll be up against—and how not to do it. Right. Freds. That was a right regal cock-up. The Freds were the special detachment of the Military Reconnaissance Force.”

He stood and walked to the mantel, leaning against it like one of Marcus's old lecturers. “The Provisional IRA are a suspicious bunch. We couldn't even send uniformed patrols into their parts of the city for quite some time. The buggers set up no-go areas. Our lot backed off. The Military Reconnaissance Force, MRF, was formed in 1971. There were forty regular soldiers in plain clothes who looked for PIRA men on their own turf.” The major looked wistful. “Brave lads. If any one of them was rumbled, he was on his own.”

“Those soldiers were the Freds?”

The major shook his head. “No, they were the MRF. The Freds were the special detachment of the MRF. Clear?”

“Not really.”

“Look.” The major held out his left hand. “MRF. Plainclothes regulars.” He held out his right hand. Ash fell from his cigarette onto the carpet, and he rubbed it in with the toe of an immaculately polished black shoe. “Keeps the moths out.” He looked back to his outstretched right hand. “Special detachment. Ten ex-Provos, working for us. Para captain was in charge.” He made a derisory sound. “Freds.”

“How on earth were Irish terrorists persuaded…?”

The major's grin was feral. “Gave them the choice of working for us or going down for some very long, very, very hard time.” He drew on his smoke. “They worked bloody well, too, until the silly buggers in charge got ambitious.”

“You've lost me again, John.”

“The Freds were billeted in these semis. Their handler lived next door in the other half. Tight security. We let them out in armoured personnel carriers with an intelligence crew. The Provo, ‘Fred,' would look through the slits. When he spotted one of his mates, the soldier-photographer took a couple of quick candids. After a patrol, Fred would put names to faces. Worked like a charm, and we took quite a few unpleasant characters out of circulation”—he shook his head, as a father might when a small child has done something particularly foolish—“until some stupid sod thought that the Freds might do even better if we let them go home and mingle with their old comrades.”

Marcus handed the major an ashtray.

He tapped the ash. “The information officer of D Company, Second Battalion of the Provos, began to suspect a chappie called Seamus Wright.” He gave a small, exasperated snort. “Why his handlers let him go and live back on Leeson Street with his wife, I'll never know. I'd rather not think about his interrogation.” The major's smile held no sympathy. “I believe it lasted for five days.”

“Jesus.” Marcus tried to shut out the mental pictures.

“Wright implicated Kevin McKee, and to save their skins the pair of them became double agents—for a while.”

“What happened?”

“They're not working for either side anymore.”

Marcus felt the hairs on the backs of his arms rise.

“Good thing, too. Before their friends, um, dispensed with the services of Wright and McKee, the bastards had created havoc.”

“How?”

“By feeding us duff information. Wright and McKee identified Provos as members of the Official IRA, in whom the intelligence services had little interest, and Officials as Provos.” The major hunted through a file, produced a photograph, and said, “Here's a good example.”

Marcus looked at the picture. Two middle-aged men stood on a street corner. The taller, a heavy-set man, had thinning grey hair and a moustache. The other had a face like a fox. “Who are these two?”

“A couple of has-beens. That's Davy McCutcheon on the left. He was with the old IRA back in the fifties, along with his mate Jimmy Ferguson. They're both over the hill. Not much interest to us.” He grunted. “When Seamus Wright was playing at double agents, he tried to persuade us that those two were Provos along with another bunch of old Officials. We didn't fall for that one.”

The major took a cigarette from the silver case. Marcus noted the SAS crest. He smiled at the thought of Major Smith's promise. The major inhaled. “It got pretty nasty at the end. Wright and McKee blew the MRF's cover. On second October two years ago, the Provos took out three MRF operations. Two and Three Battalions, PIRA, hit a house on College Square East and a massage parlour at 397 Antrim Road.”

“A massage parlour?”

“Hidden mikes pick up quite a lot.”

Marcus stifled a laugh at the image of a terrorist, clad in nothing but his balaclava, ArmaLite rifle in one hand, a weapon of an entirely different kind in the other.

The major did not smile. “I'm glad you find it amusing.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“It's John.”

“Sorry, John.”

“Not as sorry as the driver of the Four Square Laundry van. His job was to collect dirty clothes from the Republican ghettoes and rush them to a forensic laboratory before having them washed and returned to their owners. Amazing what the forensic wallahs can find. Traces of explosives, burnt powder, lead from bullets, blood.” He paused. “An action squad from One Battalion raked the van with automatic fire. Killed the driver of the van, Sapper Ted Stuart. Nice young lad, I'm told.” He crushed out his cigarette. “Lance Corporal Sarah Jane Warke was lucky to escape with her life.”

“Sounds a bit dodgy to me,” Marcus said.

“It's that, all right.” The major looked him directly in the eye. “I'll not lie to you. It's bloody dangerous. But we're in a bind. MRF's pretty well gone. The information I just gave you is hush-hush, by the way.”

Marcus was flattered by the confidence.

The major lowered his voice. “We've got to find a way in. Without intelligence, you're blind.” The major's jaundiced eyes narrowed. “We have to beat those Provo bastards. You will be a great help, you know.”

Marcus warmed to the praise.

“Keep up your studies, Mike.”

It still felt funny to be called by another man's name.

“Right.” The major stood and moved to the door. “That's enough from me for one day. Back to your books. Captain Warnock's coming over from Stirling Lines next week. Give you a crash course in fieldcraft and surveillance.”

 

TWELVE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14

It was a hell of way to spend Saint Valentine's Day, alone in a cramped kitchen. A week now since Fiona had gone, and Davy missed her sorely. He ached to see her, but he knew that she had made up her mind and would not budge unless he did as she had asked.

Jimmy had been round on Saturday. He always came on Saturdays, had done for years. He'd tried to plead with Davy to do what she wanted, even hinted that he was thinking about quitting himself. He had a son and daughter in Canada. Both of them had been suggesting for years that Jimmy and his wife should emigrate and join one of them.

Davy had known Jimmy's kids since they were wee. Fergus and Siobhan had been like the children he'd never had. Never would have now. Fiona had said that as long as he was a Provo she'd bear him none.