by Andy McNab
I called out. 'Room service – any teas or coffees for you ladies?'
'Teas please!' There was a smile in Tallulah's voice. 'And if some toast and honey finds its way onto the saucer as you're passing that would be lovely!'
Ruby giggled. 'Can I help? I'm a waitress!'
'No, no, no – you ladies stay exactly where you are. It's holiday time. Breakfast in bed.'
I ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Fuck knows who or what was out there, but if they burst through the door right now all I had to defend us with was Mr Sabatier's finest.
I put the kettle on and threw some bread in the toaster.
I didn't know if there was a device under the car, but I had to assume there was. I hadn't seen a command wire so I didn't know if it was remote-controlled, but again, I couldn't take any chances. The smart money was on a pair of eyes up the hill, watching and waiting – either for all of us to come and get in the car, or, more likely, just me. Why would these two be the target?
The toast popped up and I took butter and milk from the fridge. The priority had to be keeping Tallulah and Ruby safe, preferably without them even knowing what was happening. They'd had enough trauma and distress to last them a lifetime.
I put the toast, butter and honey on a tray, and poured boiling water over a couple of teabags. There were shouts from upstairs. Ruby was enjoying the whole room-service thing.
'Waiter! Where is my breakfast?'
How would I get them out of here?
I was going to stay. I wanted to know what was under Mr Avis's pride and joy.
I piled the teapot, mugs and a little jug of milk on the tray, and then I picked up the phone and dialled a Dublin number.
'Dom. Nick. Listen, mate, can you come and collect the girls this evening? About five?'
Platinum Bollocks was concerned. 'You argued? They not liking it?'
I just said I needed him to get his arse up here to collect the girls, but only after five.
'Just give me two rings on the phone as you approach, and drive round the back of the house. Stay in the car, engine running, and they'll come out and jump in. Don't ask, mate, just do. I'll explain it all later, OK?'
I put down the receiver and picked up the tray. I carried it upstairs and tapped on the door. 'Everybody decent?'
'Enter.'
They were sitting up in bed, all smiles. I put the tray down in front of them with a flourish.
'OK.' I grinned. 'Not only breakfast in bed, but a huge surprise.'
Ruby looked excited. 'What kind of surprise?'
'You sure you're ready for this?'
'I'm sure, I'm sure!'
'OK, we're in Ireland, right?'
'Right.'
'And you know they do things differently in different countries?'
'Yes.'
'Well, guess what happens differently here? In Ireland, today is Christmas Day!'
They both looked at me like I'd gone mad.
'Yeah, it's a fact. Finish your breakfast, take as long as you like. When you come down, it's present time.'
Tallulah stared at me with an arched eyebrow.
I tried to signal back that I'd explain later, and turned for the door before she had time to react.
They didn't appear downstairs for another half hour. Good. Only another six or seven hours of daylight to go.
'Is it really Christmas early here, Nick? Tally says you're joking.'
'Well, she's right; but the thing is, I can't wait any longer. I'm too excited. I want you to open your present.'
Tallulah shot me another disapproving glance.
I shrugged. 'OK, I'd better break it to you guys gently. It's a terrible forecast, so I thought we should have something to keep us busy. It's going to tip with rain any minute, and pour all day.'
Tallulah went to the window and raised her hand to the curtain.
'No, Tallulah, let's leave them closed. Keep it cosy. Anyway, we'll need to be in the dark in a minute.'
She looked at me strangely, but complied.
'Here we go.' I handed Ruby a badly wrapped box about the size of three stacked DVD cases.
She tore it open and she was so ecstatic I thought the ceiling was going to fall in.
21
Two hours later, Ruby had beaten me to a pulp too many times to count on the Wii tennis court, and every time Tallulah asked me a question about what was going on I somehow fobbed her off. She'd given up in the end and disappeared into the kitchen.
'Lunch is ready.' Her voice floated in from next door.
I looked at Ruby. 'You ready, champ?'
She nodded reluctantly and put down her Wii remote. We followed the smell of food.
'It's not raining, Nick. It doesn't even look like it's going to rain.' It sounded as if Tallulah had had enough. 'Let's get out this afternoon. What about a walk on the beach?'
'Nah, I fancy staying round here. Let's watch some telly.'
I flicked it on. The politicians of Northern Ireland were having a Christmas love fest for the cameras. Richard Isham gave Ian Paisley the full voltage, everlastingly sincere two-handed shake. He was looking fatter and healthier than when I'd bodyguarded him during his informal talks with Downing Street, when he'd decided politics provided a quicker route to power than Semtex had done.
It was never a surprise to me when these guys switched horses. Former terrorists were turning into statesmen everywhere on the planet, and had done since the dawn of time. Menachem Begin slaughtered British soldiers on the streets of Jerusalem and ended up on the red carpet when he arrived at 10 Downing Street as Israel's premier. Nelson Mandela and the ANC were outlaws who went on to run South Africa. Even Hamas is now the voters' friend in the West Bank. At this rate, it won't be long before Osama Bin Laden becomes a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN.
The peace process had produced the same result here, but that didn't mean everything in the garden was rosy. Even before 9/11, when the Americans had their first really big taste of the terrorism turkey, PIRA hadn't just raised funds in Boston and New York from tenth-generation Irishmen who thought of them as freedom fighters who played the fiddle in pubs in their spare time. They'd also made a fortune domestically from gambling, extortion, prostitution, bank robbery – and most of all, drugs. The police and army were too busy getting shot at and bombed, so there had been no one around to stop it. PIRA kneecapped dealers periodically as a public relations exercise, but only as a punishment for going freelance.
Richard might be having a kiss and a cuddle with Ian at Stormont right now, but deep down in the belly of the island, old habits died hard. There was just too much money at stake and they didn't want anyone else muscling in. Drugs were their big thing; they'd been running the trade for the last thirty-odd years.
Tallulah was now completely confused. 'You've been in front of that screen all morning. Is something the matter, Nick? You seem to be listening out for something. Are you expecting someone?'
'Father Christmas?' Ruby grinned.
I was going to have to switch to Plan B, whatever the fuck that was. 'OK, you're right. Tell you what, I'll go and take a shower when we've finished this fantastic food, and then we'll make some plans.'
22
I found the immersion heater in an airing cupboard next to the bathroom and switched it off at the mains. Then I took a very long shower.
Assuming it was me they were after, who had a motive? The list was as long as my arm. I stopped thinking about the motive – what about the opportunity? Who the fuck knew I was here? More than that, who would be able to spring into action so quickly?
Dom? No. The housekeeper? Ditto. The shopkeeper, or somebody in one of the villages who'd recognized me? Almost impossible, unless they'd been on the streets of Derry and Belfast in the eighties and recognized my face twenty-odd years on.
And absolutely nobody else knew I was here. Why should they? I had no one to tell where I was going. It wasn't like I had family or an employer who needed to keep in touch. A
nd we hadn't been followed. I would have known.
I yelled loudly as the water ran cold and went back downstairs with a towel around me.
'Looks like the boiler's on the blink. I'll phone Dom, see if there's a quick fix.'
I picked up the phone in the kitchen and talked without dialling. 'Can I speak with Dom, please? It's Nick, a friend. It's a personal call. He'll know who I am.' I hummed a bit as I waited. 'Hi, mate – listen, the boiler's playing up. Yeah, it's run cold. Oh shit, really? That's not good. You think so? OK, that's great. See you at about five then?'
I went back. Tallulah gave me the arched eyebrow treatment again. I beckoned her into the kitchen.
'What's happening, Nick? You're behaving very—'
'I'm not sure, but I think there's somebody outside. Don't worry, they're after me, not you. But Dom is on his way to collect you as a precaution.'
23
The house phone rang twice moments before a set of headlights swept up the drive. He drove straight to the back of the house and left the engine running.
The girls were ready. I shepherded them out to the car and saw them safely into the back before approaching Dom's window.
'Do you know who I mean when I say Liam Duff?'
'He's a household name.'
'Since when?'
'Since he was murdered last week.'
24
I hadn't seen a command wire earlier on. I didn't even know if there was a device. But if there was a command wire, there would still be somebody out there, watching and waiting for me to get into the car. Maybe the same guy who'd given Liam Duff the good news with a Black and Decker drill before finishing him off with a single shot to the head. Dom had checked out some pictures of the murder scene. He'd seen some serious shit in his time, but they had really turned his stomach.
I crawled out of the back door of the house, hugging the walls as I made my way to the front. I had a small torch I'd found in the fuse cupboard in my left hand and the kitchen knife in the other.
At the corner of the house I got down on my stomach and used my elbows and the tips of my boots to inch myself towards the car. Frozen water and mud seeped through my jeans and fleece, triggering some major league goose-bumps. Faster movement could give me away, and this way I had time to look and listen as the ice-cold wind rustled the grass and peeled a layer or two of skin off my face.
When I got to the car, I rolled onto my back and wriggled until my head was under the chassis. I made sure my fingers covered the lens of the torch before I switched it on. If I was being watched, it would be from the high ground the other side of the road, but I didn't want to make it any easier to spot me than I had to.
The beam brushed across it at once – a lunchbox-sized Tupperware container fixed under the driver's seat. Two big magnets had been stuck to the base with Isopon so it was quick to slap into position.
I still couldn't see a command wire. There was no antenna for a remote detonation.
I'd already shut myself off from the outside world. My entire focus was on this box.
There was a tiny hole with blackened edges in the lid of the container; it looked like it had been melted with a hot needle. A length of thin, eight-pound fishing line glimmered in my pencil-thin torch beam as it stretched from the hole towards the front of the vehicle. It was as taut as a bowstring; I didn't have to see where it went to know it was tied to a fish-hook that would have been snagged to the front offside wheel.
That meant I could rule out any remote detonation. There wasn't anybody on the hill. This device was going to explode the moment the car moved, and that pissed me off. There were innocent people involved here. The bomber might at least have had the decency to make sure he had eyes-on and killed only the intended target.
And the target had to be me: otherwise why place it under the driver's seat?
I wasn't going to touch it yet. I wasn't going to do anything for now but shine the torch around the semi-opaque Tupperware. It was fairly thin plastic, but the tiny beam wasn't strong enough to allow me to see inside.
The frozen ground numbed my back and hands. I found two more strands of fishing line, about three or four inches long, coming out of the other side. The priority had been to find out if it was armed, and how – and now I knew.
Every device has a safety catch. You place it, arm it, and then pull the safety pin. The three or four inches of fishing line would have started as just one or two, taped on the outside of the box to avoid them snagging. The fact that they'd been pulled meant the device was now rigged and ready to detonate. And any bomb-maker worth his salt would also have rigged an anti-handling device. Until I knew what kind this one carried, I couldn't cut the fishing line attached to the wheel and pull the box away.
I wriggled out from under the car and walked back to the house. Rummaging in the kitchen drawers, I kitted myself out with a dinner knife and a couple of cigarette lighters. Then I walked back to the car and went back to work.
25
My first job was to deal with the fishing line leading to the front wheel. No way was I just going to cut it with the knife. There was no telling how much tension it would take to trigger the thing, and cutting would create tension. Instead, I flicked the lighter and played the flame close to the device so there'd be no line left dangling to snag or pull.
The prime initiation mechanism was now dead, but that wasn't the same as saying the whole IED was. I still had to assume there was an anti-handling device.
I flicked the lighter again and held the tip of the dinner knife in the flame until it glowed. It took so long my thumb got scalded.
I put the knife straight to the two-strand end of the box and managed to cut through the plastic for a few seconds before the steel went cold. Then I had to roast my thumb all over again. I finally cut a two-inch square hole, and shone the torch inside.
There were no surprises. My fingertips touched a thin plastic sheet about halfway down. It would be sitting on top of a slab of PE. A clothes peg had been glued in place at each end. The torch beam also caught the outline of a test tube. Aball bearing glinted inside. I'd found the anti-handling device.
I probed further. I could feel a drawing pin in the jaws of each of the clothes pegs. They were touching, and therefore completing an electrical circuit. I felt for the plastic disc that would have sat between them until whoever had placed the bomb yanked it away with the two strands of fishing line.
I pressed open the peg and eased the disc back into place. The drawing-pin terminals were separated again. The circuit was broken. That just left the anti-handling booby trap.
The bomber had wedged a little bit of cardboard under one end of the Tupperware box to create enough of a gradient for the ball bearing to roll to the bottom of the tube. As soon as it rolled back up, either because the car was mobile, or because the device had been disturbed, the ball bearing would touch the two nails protruding from the rubber bung in the open end. The nails were connected to wires. Asecond circuit would have been completed when the ball bearing bridged the gap.
I pulled one wire free, took a deep breath and pulled the box gingerly from the chassis. It wasn't easy; the magnets were strong, and I didn't want to jerk the device.
Keeping it nice and level in case there was yet another anti-handling mechanism I hadn't spotted, I lowered it to the ground next to me. I wriggled out into the open air then reached back and retrieved it.