by Iain Cameron
‘Don’t shoot me!’ Mrs McCafferty said, her voice loud but wavering. ‘I’m the mother of six children and I’ve four grandchildren. I want to see them again.’
‘Shut the hell up woman,’ Doherty growled as he slapped her in the head.
‘What’s the point of shooting them?’ Matt said. ‘You’d be throwing away all your gambling chips.’
‘A man who likes a flutter, eh? You must have some Irish blood in you. A nation of incorrigible gamblers so they are.’
‘I was born in Ireland, as a matter of fact, but not around here.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘What is it you want? You can’t stay here all night, and you can’t expect us to piss off and ignore two people being held hostage.’
‘Fair dos. What do I want? I want a helicopter out of here.’
Matt thought for a few moments. ‘I might be able to supply one, but where will you go? You’re a wanted man.’
‘I didn’t do so bad those past few weeks, did I? If it wasn’t for those bloody yacht people, I’d still be fine. There’s plenty of other places I can go, don’t you worry.’
A helicopter wouldn’t be a bad move for the man, if he knew of other places he could go. It could drop him off in a rural spot, making it difficult for the Garda to get there quickly, and allowing him enough time to disappear.
Just then Matt heard a noise outside and Garda commander, Eamon McLeish came striding into the lounge.
‘What the…’ he said, the scene in front of him taking his words away.
‘Who the fuck’s this?’ Doherty said, sounding agitated. ‘Get him the hell out of here, now!’
‘I’m not leaving,’ McLeish said. ‘I know these people.’
The gun left Mrs McCafferty’s head for a second and pointed at her husband. The gun fired once, the sound like an explosion in the small lounge, before returning to its former position.
‘I told you, mate, get the fuck out of it or I’ll finish him off.’
Without another word, McLeish walked back the way he had come.
Blood was oozing from the thigh of Donal McCafferty, but he was still unconscious and would feel the pain once he had woken up. That is, if he ever did. The main supplier of blood to the leg, the femoral artery, was in the same part of the leg as the bullet wound. If it had pierced the artery, McCafferty could bleed to death in less than ten minutes.
‘As I was saying, Flynn, before PC Plod came barging in, I want a helicopter. I don’t care if it’s Coast Guard, Air Sea and Rescue, or civilian, I’m not fussed, but one with enough fuel to take me off this island. If I’m to let her go, it comes with some conditions. No helicopter is to follow and she’s coming with me. If you comply, I’ll leave her on the helicopter when I get off. If I see another helicopter or a plane comes close, I’ll chuck her out of the door, you understand?’
‘No, no you can’t do that!’ Mrs McCafferty whined, ‘I’ve got–’
Doherty bashed the butt of his gun against her skull. ‘Shut up woman. If they play ball, you’ll be able to visit him in hospital, okay? If not, neither of you will need one.’
Matt turned to the Garda officer beside him. ‘You heard Mr Doherty’s demands. Go out there and tell the commander to get it organised.’
‘We’re giving him what he asked for?’
‘Do you think we’ve got a choice? Now go and tell Commander McLeish what Mr Doherty wants, and tell him to organise it.’
‘Right oh.’ The officer clanked out of the lounge, leaving Matt alone with Doherty and his two hostages.
‘Good man, Flynn,’ Doherty said, ‘you know it makes sense.’
‘It’ll take a bit of time before it gets here.’
‘Nah. There’s plenty of them around these parts, with so many old people like these two living in remote farms and houses. It’s too far for them to drive to the nearest hospital.’
Matt nodded, acknowledging his point.
A few minutes later, the officer who had been at Matt’s side earlier came back into the lounge slowly, no doubt mindful of how Doherty had reacted to the last incursion.
‘The helicopter’s all arranged, Mr Doherty. It will be here in about ten minutes.’
‘Good lad. Now, bugger off and join your mates outside.’
The Garda officer left the room, no doubt grateful to be away from the unpredictable man with the gun.
Matt was confident of stopping Doherty before he reached the helicopter. In daylight, the IRM man could look around to make sure no one was behind him as he walked with Mrs McCafferty to his transport. In darkness, a sniper could be lurking behind a wall, or lying in the bracken nearby. If McLeish was half the officer Matt believed him to be, this thought would have already passed through his mind and Matt hoped he had done something about it.
‘So, what brings you boys from HSA to this back of beyond?’
‘I take it you haven’t forgotten about the Syrian arms shipment?’
‘Was that you, you bastard?’ he exploded. ‘I should shoot you now.’ In an instant, the gun moved from the head of Mrs McCafferty and pointed at Matt.
Matt shook his head, trying not to rile him ‘No, it wasn’t us. Counter Terrorism officers.’
Matt was trying to sound casual, not easy with a gun pointed at him. Doherty’s face took on a suspicious look, the gun wavering for a second or two before moving back to the head of the terrified woman.
‘They said it was you who organised the arms shipment,’ Matt said.
‘I don’t mind admitting it, but you didn’t nab them all, did you?’
‘No, they didn’t, but I hope they do. For Ireland’s sake.’
‘No chance.’
‘What do you think you’ll achieve bringing guns back into Ireland? People are sick of violence, they like the peace given to them by the Good Friday Agreement.’
‘Don’t you, a fucking Englishman, lecture me about what Irish people want.’
‘I told you before, I’m as Irish as you are.’
‘It’s an easy mistake to make with you speaking like an Englishman, but the island of Ireland is still divided. I won’t rest until it’s united.’
‘No matter how many die in the process?’
‘It will be worth it to rid the island of that abomination they call Ulster.’
Doherty then launched into a hustings speech about how a united Ireland would become a nirvana for young and old, and how a socialist government would create prosperity and bring poverty and deprivation to an end. Matt tuned out and instead concentrated on how he could stop a bloodbath and prevent Doherty escaping.
In time, the sound of the approaching helicopter became louder than Doherty’s rant, one irritating noise replacing the other.
‘Right Flynn, you get outside and join your buddies. Make sure all you cops are over to the right as I come out of the house. Any funny moves and she gets it. Understand?’
‘Understood.’
Matt walked outside. He approached McLeish and leaned in close, trying to talk over the clatter of the helicopter. ‘He wants everyone to move over to the right before he comes out. Have you put snipers in position?’
McLeish nodded. ‘I have.’
‘Good.’
McLeish turned and waved his men over one side. With everyone in position, they stood silently and waited. The lights of the farmhouse went out one by one. Moments later, Doherty, with Mrs McCafferty in front, appeared at the door. ‘Is that all your men over there, Flynn?’
The voice sounded disembodied in the darkness, as if it came from somewhere else.
‘It is.’
‘None of them are lying up ahead in the grass aiming to shoot me?’
‘Nope.’
‘I don’t believe a fucking word, but any dirty tricks, and I’m telling you, she gets it.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Tell the pilot to kill all the lights in his machine until take-off.’
McLeish lifted his radio and instructed the p
ilot. When the lights were extinguished, Doherty eased out of the house, Mrs McCafferty shielding him from the guns outside. Out in the open, Doherty began walking backwards towards the helicopter, pointing his hostage at the Garda officers.
Matt could see what Doherty’s tactics were now. By moving to the helicopter in complete darkness, he hoped any snipers out there would not have a clear shot. In fact, they didn’t have any shot at all, as they wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the hostage taker and the hostage. If tried to move closer, Doherty would see or hear them.
When Doherty reached the end of the McCafferty property, marked by a stone wall, at least Matt thought that’s where they were, McLeish leaned over. ‘He’s passed both my shooters. They can’t tell if they’re shooting at him or Mrs McCafferty. The bastard’s getting away.’
Matt thought for a moment. ‘Hang on, I’ve got an idea.’
‘What?’
‘Let me have a radio.’
McLeish turned and took a radio from one of his officers and handed it to Matt. ‘What now?’
‘On my say-so,’ he said lifting up the radio, ‘I need you to instruct the pilot to put on all the helicopter lights. Okay?’
‘Why?’
‘Just do as I say, all right? I’ll call you.’
‘Okay.’
Matt set off, keeping a wide arc between himself and the helicopter. Despite covering more ground and giving Doherty and his companion a head start, he reckoned he would soon overtake them. He’d taken off his Kevlar vest and anything else that might impede his progress or make a noise. Not that sound was much of a consideration, as his arc had taken him along the cliff tops and the closer he came to the idling helicopter, the noisier it became.
He could just make it out now, despite the absence of lights, as he could see the green glow of the instrument panel reflected on the pilot’s helmet. When in an almost direct line to the front of the helicopter, Matt lay down on the grass, brought the radio up to his mouth and lined up his carbine.
Sufficient light was escaping from the Perspex sides of the helicopter for Matt to detect the approach of the two deadly dancers. He pressed the radio and hissed, ‘Helicopter lights on! Repeat, helicopter lights on!’
Seconds later, the cockpit lights illuminated and then the searchlight at the top of the helicopter, turning this small part of Inishmore into daylight. Suspecting a trap, Patrick Doherty manoeuvred himself and his hostage this way and that, but it was obvious he had no real idea where a possible sniper would be positioned.
Doherty stopped moving and presented a fine view of his back. Matt fired one shot to the head. The man was dead before he hit the ground and before Siobhan McCafferty started screaming.
Chapter 44
Matt climbed into his car. He had just been to the gym and even though he’d showered and felt fresh thanks to a liberal application of Lynx shower gel, he didn’t feel good. It was the first time he’d been to the gym for weeks, having been preoccupied with chasing down Jack Harris and then Patrick Doherty. It wasn’t the death of Doherty that was bothering him, even though the scumbag got what most people believed he deserved. It was the pain in his shoulder.
He’d taken a bullet there in a previous operation, and with plenty of physiotherapy and controlled workouts, he’d thought he was over it. This morning while lifting a barbell, it had starting nagging him again. The solution, he knew, was more regular gym visits to gradually build up the strength in his shoulder, but despite being given a couple of days off work following the shooting of Doherty, there was no letting up from the work pressure.
The IRM case was closed as far as HSA were concerned, moving Gill to almost offer him and Rosie a compliment for a job well done. Matt would be happy to forgo the plaudits if a pay rise was being offered instead. Living as a single guy in London was proving bloody expensive, but at least the house in Ingatestone was now under offer, meaning he could soon have the cash to buy a permanent base.
The PSNI were hard on the heels of the IRM guns that Matt and the Counter Terrorism team couldn’t track down. They’d raided various addresses in the Province and recovered a number of guns, and they’d assured Gill they wouldn’t let up the pressure until they’d recovered the remainder.
Despite a successful conclusion to the Doherty case, there was still Emma’s murder to solve. With Harris in custody and soon to return to the UK under an armed police escort, Matt avoided the office in case another big case landed on his plate. Before all that, there was someone he needed to talk to first.
Matt parked his bike a couple of streets away from an underground station. He walked there and took a train to Tottenham Court Road. It didn’t take long to find the restaurant, and Lisa Deacon. She was seated in the middle of the diners, waving her arms in the air, trying to attract his attention. When he arrived at the table, she jumped up and threw her arms around him.
Lisa, the daughter of Sir Raymond Deacon, the Home Office minister responsible for establishing HSA, had been abducted twelve months previously. In one of Matt’s first missions for the nascent organisation, he had found the Arab kidnapper, shot him, and freed Lisa. For an almost nine-month period, she’d felt a prisoner in her own home, Clifton Manor, the large house she and her father shared near Windsor. She couldn’t go out due to severe anxiety and acute xenophobia brought about by her seven-day kidnap ordeal and subsequent rape by the perpetrator. Now, here she was, behaving like a regular customer in a busy pizza restaurant in central London.
‘So,’ Matt said when they’d ordered drinks, a beer for him and some form of non-alcoholic fruit cocktail for Lisa, ‘How’s the new job going?’
‘It’s so good. I’m working with an excellent bunch of authors.’
‘Not in the place where you used to work?’
‘God, no; too many bad memories. No, I’m at a different publisher now, but I’m still editing.’
‘Still in Children’s Books?’
‘How many times? It wasn’t Children’s Books, it was Educational Books. We published books to help teachers, but that’s all academic now, no pun intended. I’m in General Fiction now.’
‘What, helping authors who can’t spell and don’t understand grammar?’
She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. ‘You’re trying to wind me up again, Matt Flynn. Stop it.’
The drinks arrived and, this being a fast-moving business, in the next instant the waiter whisked out his pad and asked them what they wanted to eat.
Matt had been in plenty of pizza places since his move to London and knew what he liked without referring to the menu. The waiter translated his requirements into their closest match, and departed.
‘If you end up with a margherita,’ Lisa said, ‘it will be your own fault for not looking at the menu.’
Matt shrugged. ‘I was at the gym this morning so I’ll eat anything they put in front of me. If I finish before you, guard your plate.’
‘You’ll do all right in here. I never finish the pizzas, they’re too big.’
‘So, how’s your dad?’
‘You probably know better than I do. He’s always in late, as he’s working on a new prison reform bill. The greatest shake-up in the penal system since the 1950s, according to him.’
She was right about him knowing what Sir Raymond was up to. HSA Director, Templeton McGill, called Gill by all who knew him, was a personal friend of her father and kept Matt updated.
‘What about you, Lisa? How are you finding travelling into London every day?’
‘Do you remember I was looking for a place when you-know-what happened?’
Matt nodded as he was taking a drink. He was hot, not only from his earlier exertions, but it was a baking hot day outside and the restaurant didn’t have air-con.
‘Back then, Daddy was thinking of moving full-time to London and renting the house to some film director and his family.’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, a girl I work beside in my new office is keen to sh
are a flat with me. The whole thing might be back on.’
Matt was pleased to hear about her willingness to share. Back then, before her abduction, Sir Raymond was in the process of buying her a flat, but she became a different girl after it.
‘I’m pleased to hear you’re getting yourself sorted, I think you’re ready for it.’
‘I think so too. I’ve missed out on so much.’
A jug of water appeared. Matt poured glasses for both of them and downed half of his in one gulp. He had been enjoying the beer, but nothing could beat a thirst like water, and too much beer and a motorbike weren’t a good combination.
A minute or so later, two well-baked pizzas were slid in front of them. They were huge, spilling over the edges of the plate and thicker than expected.
‘It looks like the chef knew want you wanted after all,’ Lisa said. ‘You’ve got plenty of peppers and salami. Bon appétit.’
Throughout the meal, Matt let Lisa talk about the place where she wanted to live and the things she would do with London on her doorstep. He kept quiet as he wanted to catch up with Lisa’s life as he hadn’t seen her for a while, and the work he did, and used to do in the Met, didn’t make for a good lunchtime conversation.
He didn’t want to talk about his personal life either, as he had no wish to warm any of its pages with sunlight. His opinion might change with Emma’s killers either dead or locked-up in a high-security jail, although he believed there was a good chance they wouldn’t be. He didn’t know what reforms Sir Raymond was piloting through Parliament, but he and Sir Raymond were on the same page when it came to the punishment of murderers, terrorists and major drug dealers.
Matt could have sat listening to Lisa for the rest of the afternoon, but even though he didn’t need to get back to work as he still was on R&R, she did. It was a shame that even the kudos of having a famous father didn’t cut any ice in the publishing world. He said goodbye to Lisa outside the offices where she worked. Sir Raymond may have been relaxed about Lisa working in and moving to London, but Matt still felt apprehensive. His fear was irrational, he knew, because if the chances of being taken hostage by a terrorist ran into the millions, the probability of it occurring for a second time had to be astronomical. However, having lost someone close to him recently, he didn’t want the same thing happening again.