The Hostage (7 page)

She accepted he needed some release time and checked all about them through the windows. There was no sign of anyone. She felt for her gun. It was still in her shoulder holster.

‘How come my fuckin’ airbag didn’t go off?’ Ed finally asked.

‘You don’t have one on your side. That’s where they put the radio scrambler.’

‘Fuckin’ brilliant,’ he said.

She pressed the button below the seat. ‘Zero alpha, this is one three kilo, check?’

‘Zero alpha, send,’ came Graham’s voice from the ops room.

‘We’re out of it,’ she said. The words came out like a pathetic confession of failure for all to hear.

 

Stratton received the message with his usual calm acceptance and quickly moved on. He studied the map, considering the possibilities.The obvious one - and the one he would go for - was that the kidnappers planned to take Spinks directly over the border and into the South. Keeping Spinks in the North would remove the high risk of being stopped at a crossing point, but then they would remain under the RUC and army’s nose. If Stratton was wrong and the kidnappers stayed in the North, there was still a chance of finding Spinks alive. If they made it over the border, Spinks was a dead man for sure. Time was the crucial factor. It would take precious minutes for the army and police to set up roadblocks on every crossing, especially the small lane crossings in the countryside, minutes they might not have.

Water from the Neagh sprayed the bubble glass as the helicopter roared across the lake barely five feet above it. Land the other side was in sight, but they were still too far to know if Spinks had played his ace card, the only card he probably had left.

 

Brennan sat in the rear of the car, his pistol levelled at Spinks, while keeping an eye on the road ahead as they entered the town of Dungannon at a normal speed.

‘Nice and easy,’ he said. ‘Let’s not draw any attention.’

Sean was annoyed with the obvious advice. He took the constant flow of petty orders as a show of nerves on Brennan’s part, not what he expected from a man who was as hard and experienced as he was reputed to be. Sean drove into the town and before heading up the steep hill toward the city centre he turned into a housing estate.

‘There it is,’ said Brennan. ‘Pull in behind.’

Sean slowed the car and parked behind a van in the quiet street. Brennan leaned closer to Spinks’s face with his pistol shoved in his stomach and made his words as clear and murderous as possible.

‘We’re now going to change vehicles. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you, you Pink bastard. If you make a fuss and lark about, it won’t matter because we own this street, but I’ll batter the livin’ shite outta ya anyway for not doing what you’re told. Understand?’

Spinks nodded.

‘I was ordered to deliver you alive. No one said anything about bits of you bein’ missing, okay?’

Spinks believed him.

‘Pull yer trousers on,’ Brennan said.

Spinks shuffled on his back and pulled up his trousers and clipped them together. He tried to fasten the zip but it was broken.

‘Don’t worry about your shoes and socks. We’ll get you a nice pair of comfy slippers when we get to the hotel,’ Brennan said with a grin. ‘Nice and slowly now.The driver’s going to get out, open your door, and I’ll follow you out.’

Spinks pulled his shirt closed to cover his exposed chest and stomach. Brennan nodded to Sean, who opened his door and climbed out. He looked around and up and down the street. The windowless wall of the building behind him was covered with drawings of Republican flags and slogans. There was a handful of people about, someone returning from shopping, an old woman walking a dog, a couple of housewives chatting over garden fences, children kicking a football the far end of the street. Sean opened the rear passenger door.

‘Nice and easy,’ Brennan reminded Spinks.

As Spinks started to sit up he felt spasms of pain in several parts of his body, damage caused from the ride and where Brennan had roughed him up. He supported himself on his arms, pushing himself upright so he could drag his legs around and move them out the door ahead of him. His right hand slipped off the seat and into the boot where it touched something metallic jammed under the seat.The stun grenade. Spinks stalled for a second, his mind flying through the possibilities. He knew it was a slender chance, but he also knew that if he ended up wherever this thug was taking him it was the only one he had. There was still the ace to play, but he couldn’t use that while this bastard kept so close an eye on him. This might give him the opportunity to play that last card, if he could only get to it.When the kidnap scenario had been discussed in training all the emphasis was placed on avoidance. Once the operative was in the enemy’s clutches it was pretty much accepted the game was to all intents over. ‘Take your chances early,’ was the advice they always gave.

‘Move it,’ Brennan said impatiently, prodding Spinks with the gun.

Spinks lost hope at the sight of the gun barrel and decided the idea was suicide. He let his hand leave the grenade as he squeezed his legs past the back of the front seats. But, suddenly, he felt like a drowning man letting go of his lifebelt. He knew he had to take the risk. He had absolutely nothing to lose. He pushed his feet round to the door and fell back to let his hand find the grenade once again. It was jammed under the seat, but the right way around. He could feel the ring. He slipped his finger in through it, but then Brennan grabbed him viciously by the throat.

‘Move your bloody arse!’ he growled, his spittle hitting Spinks in the face.

The threat only served to remind Spinks how much he had to go for it now. He knew they were in Dungannon. He had recognised the town immediately.This monster grew only stronger the closer they got to the South. ‘I said move it!’

Brennan released Spinks who pulled himself upright. As he did so he pulled the ring clean from the stun grenade. There was a distinct and audible ‘ching’, a metallic sound he knew well but which, he hoped, Brennan and Sean would not. It was the actuating arm flying off under released pressure from the detonation spring, which in turn allowed the plunger to strike the cap that would start the sequence.

The explosions were rapid and immediate, noisy and bright, like a giant firecracker, dozens of bangs in succession, non-injurious but frighteningly loud, with particles of blinding, burning magnesium to add to the effect.The smoke and cacophony filled the car, one of the small charges going off inches from Brennan’s face. Brennan jerked back in immediate fear, dropping his gun to cover himself. The weapon designed to create instant confusion had done its job perfectly.

Spinks pushed out of the car and, crouching low, his bare feet hit the ground. He rolled forward and shouldered Sean backwards, throwing him to the pavement, then mustering all his grit and determination he ran with every ounce of strength he could pull from his legs. He slammed one bare foot in front of the other, ignoring the pain as the soft skin on the soles of his feet were slashed open in the first few paces. He was moving, but, it seemed, hardly at all as if he was running through molasses. The explosions behind him would not last long. Five or six seconds perhaps.

He turned off the pavement, ducked between the van and the car, and ran on to the street.

People looked towards the noise, looked at Spinks, his jacket and shirt flapping open, his bare feet. Spinks kept running, hard as he could, gaining a precious yard with each step, arms beating the air. Yet more misfortune befell him when the clip holding his trousers together snapped and they started to slip. He grabbed them with both hands and kept on going, but it upset his rhythm, slowing him as the crotch dropped closer to his knees and shortened his stride. He pulled them up a few inches and speeded up again.

Then he felt something dig into his crotch, under his balls, something sharp. He knew what it was and suddenly feared losing it. He reached into his underpants, still running hard, his fingers digging beneath his testicles. He touched it. At that same instant something flew out of his body, out of his chest just below his left shoulder. It felt hot and it burned. It flew ahead of him. It was a length of blood. He felt a hard whack on his back, behind where his chest burned, a brutal thump, like a rock hitting him, or a hammer blow. His mind acknowledged a loud bang somewhere behind him, a boom.

The force of the blow toppled him forward. He tried to keep his feet under him as he tipped by increasing his stride but it was no use. His head dropped lower than his hips, the road suddenly all he could see, He released his trousers and reached out with his left hand, his right jammed awkwardly inside his underpants, but the hand crumpled on contact, unable to hold his falling weight. His face hit the tarmac and scraped along the rough surface, taking the flesh from his forehead, his nose, and gouging his lips and chin. His gut hit and he bounced a little and rolled on to his side and then his back. He skidded a few more feet then lay there, breathing hard, dazed, commanding his limbs to get going. They beat the air as if he were running, but he could not coordinate them, the ground gone from beneath them.

Suddenly arms grabbed him and he was rolled on to his front. A hand pulled him up by his hair, another grabbed his collar, choking him, while another grabbed one of his arms. He was dragged forward in this position, his toes scraping along the road, taking the skin off to the bone.

He reached the back of the van, its doors open. He was raised quickly up and inside, then dropped into something, a trunk, or large box. He looked at the blurred faces above him, but only for an instant before a lid came crashing down inches from his face and it went black. There were more bangs in quick succession as doors were shut, and then the vehicle’s engine started up.

Spinks lay, rocking, in a dark, confined space once again. His shoulder started to burn as if it were on fire. He let out a moan, then a cry for help. All he could hear was the engine and the whine from the axle beneath him. It was his worst nightmare come true. Every operative’s worst nightmare.The unthinkable was happening to him. He was the one. It did not seem possible, even as he lay there. They had talked about it, the recruits together, during breaks in training, or at night in their beds, and sometimes at the bar in the camp after a few beers. It was like a ghoulish fairytale, the kind of horror that could only happen to someone else.

Spinks started to cry. His life flashed in front of him, with plenty of time to see the details. Life was not so meaningless, even the old days, the boring pointless days of his youth. He wanted to live. And he would, for quite some time he expected. But every second of that would be horror. The stories of what they did to captives were unthinkable. If they could slowly torture to death one of their own, what would they do to him, a British spy, a hated undercover man?

Tears rolled off his face into his ears. His chest shook with painful heaves as his fear took hold. He scratched the top of his coffin. His nails broke. He didn’t care. He scratched and pushed with his feet as he cried. But it was no good. His coffin was too strong. He gave up the effort and just cried. He wallowed in his nightmare for a few moments more, and then even that was too exhausting to maintain. He eventually lay there, quietly, listening to his breathing above the sound of the engine. He moved a hand to touch the burning pain below his shoulder. It was wet. He felt under his shirt and found a small tender hole in his flesh. Images of his run and fall came back to him. He could see the scene more clearly now than when it happened. He was in Dungannon. They were still in the North. Then he remembered his ace.

Despite the intense pain in his chest, Spinks twisted himself in the confined space so that he could manoeuvre his arm down into his underpants and between his fatty legs. He reached under his balls to where it had moved and felt its hard plastic edge. Brennan had thoroughly searched for it but had stopped short of Spinks’s most dank nether regions. Had it remained where Spinks originally placed it, loosely in the front of his undies, Brennan might have found it when he pulled them down. He gripped the miniature transponder in his fingertips and carefully pulled it out.

The Gazelle left Lough Neagh behind and headed south-west for the border. It climbed just high enough to pass over a line of high-tension power cables then dropped majestically to rooftop height again, still going flat out. The pilot was concentrating too hard now to be distracted by the rollicking he had received from the thug beside him and Camelot’s commanding officer. He was doing what he had been trained to do for all those months in Germany not more than a year ago. Fast and low. He was good at it too. Had Stratton not been so rude and perhaps stroked him a little he might not have been so wet about it. He decided to show this brute a thing or two about flying.

Stratton checked the map even though he knew the area well. After following the M1 for a short distance they cut a line for Aughnacloy, leaving Dungannon a few miles to the right of them.

‘Give me five hundred feet,’ Stratton ordered. The pilot mumbled something that sounded like ‘five hundred’ and complied, adjusting the pitch just a little and the framework shuddered and the thud of the rotor-blades deepened as they took a larger bite out of the air. The increased g-force was perceptible as the slender craft ascended then levelled out.

‘That’s the border, along there,’ Stratton informed the pilot, making sure he knew exactly where they were.

‘I’m aware exactly where the border is,’ the pilot replied curtly.

I’ll bet he is, thought Stratton. Air Corp pilots from his unit had inadvertently crossed it on a number of occasions. One idiot had even flown to the town of Monaghan, ten miles inside the Republic, thinking it was the Northern Irish town of Armagh. He actually landed on the heli-pad of the police station and climbed out and waved at some officers before he realised he was very much in the wrong place. Since that day pilots were warned their careers would be over if they so much as skimmed the border.