The Chinaman

by Stephen Leather

  ‘That means he was close by.’

  ‘Still is, I reckon. Depends how long his wires were.’ He pointed across the field towards a distant copse. ‘The wires run in that direction. If you move fast . . .’

  ‘Christ, what was I thinking of!’ Hennessy blurted. ‘We should be after him now.’ He called Kavanagh over and told him to take all but three of the men and follow the wires and to go after The Chinaman. As an afterthought he told Murphy to stay behind because after what had happened he was even more keen to get Mary out of the way.

  O’Faolain arrived in the Range Rover and Hennessy, Murphy and O’Hara helped lift McMahon on to the back seat. There was a large tartan blanket there and they used it to wrap him up in. Hennessy delegated another of the young men to sit in the back and make sure that McMahon wasn’t tossed around too much on the drive to the hospital. The Range Rover roared off as Hennessy shielded his eyes and looked at the group of men running across the fields, fanning out the further away they got from the track. Of The Chinaman there was no sign, but he had to be out there somewhere.

  Nguyen had begun to crawl through the grass as soon as he had detonated the pipe bomb. The wires had been about fifty yards long which put him about halfway across the field, but he could move quickly on his stomach and by the time the front door of the farm had opened he had reached the relative safety of a hedgerow that cut it off from the neighbouring field where a flock of sheep and lambs grazed and played.

  He’d set the bomb in the early hours of the morning before the sky had streaked with red and the sun had made its first appearance. He’d planned to dig down into the track but as it turned out there had been no need. It cut across the field with a narrow ditch on either side to keep the rain running off it during the wet weather. In places, the earth by the side of the track had begun to crumble into the ditch and Nguyen found a spot where he could pull out handfuls of soil with a minimum of effort. He scooped out enough to hide one of the pipe bombs, and he carefully ran the wires down into the ditch and through the grass as far as they would go. The grass was barely tall enough to conceal him but the ground was uneven and towards the road it sloped steeply away from the farm so Nguyen knew that, so long as he kept low, he’d be able to reach the hedgerow without being spotted. He’d lain flat on the ground for about six hours, not moving. He’d seen the sun come up and heard the birds begin their dawn chorus and counted half a dozen helicopters flying overhead before the Jaguar had come down the track.

  After he detonated the bomb he rolled under the hedge and found a gap big enough to squeeze through and then began crawling away from the road, back towards the farm. After he’d travelled two hundred yards he peeked through the hedge. He could see Hennessy kneeling on the ground cradling the driver. Nguyen doubted that he would be badly hurt, the bomb had been too far underground to do too much damage. He’d been careful to detonate it just under the front bumper, not so far ahead that the blast would send the windscreen glass spinning into the driver’s face, but not so far back that the petrol tank would be ignited. Nguyen didn’t want to kill unless it was absolutely necessary, he still hoped to get what he wanted by pressurising and intimidating Hennessy. If that didn’t work then he’d rethink his strategy.

  A small, thin-faced man was bending over the crater in the track. He knelt down and picked up something and looked at it and then went over to look at the blasted car. He examined the damage to the underside of the car and then walked back to the crater. He looked into the ditch and then jumped over it and began searching the grass. Nguyen knew that he was looking for the wires and that before long he’d find them. He cut away from the hedgerow and ran with his back to the farm-buildings, his rucksack banging on his shoulders. He tramped across a small stream and vaulted over a five-bar gate into a field containing a dozen or so brown and white cattle, breathing heavily because he wasn’t used to running. He reached the edge of the copse where he’d hidden the previous evening and slipped into the cool undergrowth before looking behind him. The field was clear, and so was the one behind that, but it was only a matter of time before they came after him. Not that Nguyen was worried. He’d only seen ten men in the courtyard dealing with the fire last night and he doubted that Hennessy would allow them all to go tramping through the fields and woods, leaving the cottage unprotected. Five, or maybe six, that would be all, and Nguyen knew he was more than capable of handling that many because they’d have to spread out.

  The copse covered several acres and was on land which was obviously too wet for grazing sheep or cattle. He’d spent several hours getting to know his way around and could move confidently through it, knowing where the best hiding places and vantage points were. The trees were a mixture of oak, horse chestnut and beech, all of them old and draped in moss and surrounded by bushes and brambles. The canopy of branches overhead blocked out much of the sunlight and the air was filled with the chatter of birds jostling for territory. Nguyen made his way towards the middle of the copse, being careful not to break branches or leave obvious signs of his passage. In the distance he heard shouts. They’d be able to follow the wires to the place where he’d lain in the grass and then they’d be able to see where he’d crawled to the hedgerow, but unless they were expert trackers they wouldn’t be able to see where he’d gone from there. They’d see the trees but they wouldn’t be sure if he’d gone to ground there, or if he’d run through or passed by, so they’d probably split up. Two, maybe three. It would be easy.

  A rustling sound to his left made him drop into a crouch, senses alert. A grey squirrel sprinted out from underneath a bush, its tail streaming behind it like a banner, and it ran headlong up a tree with something held in its jaws. Nguyen relaxed and as he did he heard more shouts, heading in his direction. A meandering trail roughly bisected the wood, it was nothing more than a flattening of the soil where countless generations of feet had used it as a shortcut through the trees. By the side of the trail was a huge oak, a centuries-old tree which was gnarled and misshapen with age. It was a good twelve feet across at the base and its roots were as thick as a man’s waist before they dived down into the earth. Behind the tree, on the side furthest away from the path, was a deep split where the wood had cracked, half covered with a rambling bramble bush with sharp thorns. Nguyen had marked it out as a good place to hide because anyone searching the copse would probably take the easy way and follow the path. Some fifteen feet or so either side of the tree he’d tossed small, dry twigs along the path which were sure to crackle and break when stepped on so he’d be able to hear them coming no matter how careful they were. He’d prepared traps along the trail in places where it narrowed. Nothing elaborate because he hadn’t had the time, just holes dug in the earth, a foot or so deep, with sharpened sticks, smeared with his own excrement, pointing upward. The holes had been covered with a mesh of fine twigs and leaves and overlain with soil, and overnight they had blended in perfectly with the rest of the trail. Even Nguyen himself could see no traces of the traps.

  He slipped by the brambles and edged into the hole in the tree, first removing his rucksack so that it wouldn’t snag. He unclipped his knife and held it by his side, breathing slowly and evenly. There were more shouts to his left, outside the wood, and then a yelling voice to his right. There were more voices, closer, whispering. He heard someone forcing his way through the undergrowth, but moving away from him, and then a similar noise to his left, also moving away. Two men at least, then. They had entered the copse together and had split up either side of the trail and were moving through the trees. The shouting continued in the distance so he had been right, some of the men had gone by the copse and were probably even now running across the fields and checking the hedgerows.

  Nguyen let his mind totally relax so that he could concentrate on listening for his pursuers. They moved like large animals through the trees, pushing branches out of the way, not caring where they trod, and he had no problem in pinpointing their positions. He closed his eyes and let his mind roam the
woods. He heard the dry crack of a twig and homed in on the sound, twenty, perhaps twenty-five feet away, someone moving slowly and carefully, somebody who cared how and where he walked. There was a pause of perhaps ten seconds then a second sound, the rustle of a leaf being disturbed.

  Nguyen blanked out his mind, wiping away all thoughts and concentrating only on the approaching man. He tried to make himself invisible. Nguyen had once tried explaining it to the instructors from the 5th Special Forces Group at Recondo School outside Saigon, how his sixth sense worked and how he would shield his own thoughts from pursuers so that he could blend into the jungle and not be seen or felt. They’d laughed, thinking he was talking about magic or voodoo, but Nguyen was serious. His talent had saved his life, and the lives of his men, many, many times. It wasn’t a case of hearing, or smelling, it was sensing, but even Nguyen didn’t know exactly what it was that he sensed. It was as if he could tune into the electrical field given off by a human being or an animal, as if he could detect their auras from a distance. And he believed that the reverse was true, that other animals and humans could detect his aura and home in on it unless he dampened it down.

  He heard a small movement and knew that the man was now level with the tree, heading down the trail. Nguyen’s mind was empty now, like a placid pool with not a single ripple disturbing its surface. He was no longer aware of the heavy knife in his hand or the pressure of the ground against his left knee as he knelt inside the tree trunk. He was invisible. He flowed out of the tree as gentle as a soft wind, brushing the brambles silently aside. His steps were small and only the balls of his feet made contact with the ground, his legs bent at the knees. The man on the trail was slightly taller than Nguyen. He stood with his back to him, wearing jeans and a dark-blue bomber jacket. In his right hand he carried a gun. Nguyen had planned to silence the man with his left hand and stun him by driving the handle of his knife against his temple but he couldn’t risk it now because the man’s finger would tighten involuntarily and the gun would go off. Still moving, he slipped the knife into one of the pockets of his jacket and moved behind the man, both hands out. Only at the last minute did the man sense his presence and begin to turn his head, but by then Nguyen was in position. His right hand moved down swiftly and clamped over the gun, fingers splayed so that he caught the hammer and prevented it from being released. His left hand simultaneously clamped over the man’s mouth and nose. He pulled the nose between his thumb and the first joint of the opposing index finger while gripping the jaws between the heel of the hand and the remaining finger tips. The man tried to lash out with his left hand but Nguyen twisted away, out of reach. From experience Nguyen knew that it could take up to two minutes for the man to lose consciousness and he gripped tightly until the man sagged and the gun dropped from his nerveless hand. Nguyen put the gun into his jacket pocket and took out the knife. He let the man’s dead-weight carry him to the ground. Killing him would have been easy; a quick slash across the subclavian artery would take just three seconds, cutting the carotid artery and jugular vein would kill within twelve. But Nguyen knew that killing the enemy wasn’t always the best way, not when you were up against more than one. A dead comrade could be abandoned while the fight continued, but an injured one became a drain on the enemy’s resources. He had to be cared for and transported out of danger, with the added psychological damage that a wounded man could do to the able-bodied. Time and time again Nguyen had seen it happen in the jungle. A group of Americans on a mission, the man on point would run into a booby trap, his leg blown off or a poisoned stick through his foot, and his screams and blood would terrify the rest. Not only that but the mission would be suspended while a helicopter was called in or the man was stretchered back to base. And next time a patrol moved down the trail they’d do so with twice the care at half the speed.

  He heard a shout far to his right and an answer over to his left. He knelt down by the unconscious man and stabbed him twice in the upper thigh, not deep enough to cut an artery but enough to cause a considerable flow of blood.

  The shouting was getting closer and Nguyen ducked behind the tree to pick up his rucksack and began to run down the track, keeping low. A gunshot behind him made him duck and he ran faster. Twice he jumped over places in the track where he’d earlier set spike traps. The man he’d ambushed must have come round because he heard frantic screaming. His screams and the gunshot would bring the rest of the men running to the copse, but Nguyen was still perfectly calm because he had many other hiding-places prepared. It would take a dozen men many days to search the copse thoroughly and they had no way of knowing whether he’d gone to ground or if he’d left the woods. They’d be sure to follow his tracks down the trail but there was a good chance that one of them would fall into one of the foot traps and that would slow them up even more. Everything was going to plan.

  It seemed to Hennessy as if his life had been turned upside down. Mary had left with Christy Murphy in one of the Land-Rovers, driving over the fields for a mile or so before turning on to the road just in case The Chinaman had set other bombs. In a few hours she’d be in London where at least she’d be safe. Jimmy McMahon was in hospital where his condition, the doctors said, was as well as could be expected. They’d been told that a faulty generator had exploded because Hennessy didn’t want the RUC sniffing around. The man who’d been stabbed in the wood had turned out to have superficial wounds despite all his screaming and they’d patched him up and he was being driven up to Belfast for treatment along with a teenager who’d put his foot through six wooden spikes smeared with what looked like shit. He could barely walk and he’d need antibiotics if the wound wasn’t going to go septic.

  In the space of an hour, three of his men had been injured and all they had to show for it was a description of a small Oriental man in camouflage gear carrying a rucksack. And if he wasn’t armed before, now he had a gun.

  Hennessy had posted four guards around the farm and everyone else was now indoors. Joe Ryan and Sarah were staying in their own cottage. With three men injured, one driving the car to Belfast, and Murphy on his way to London with Mary, it left Hennessy with just Jim Kavanagh and Willie O’Hara sitting at the kitchen table. He poured O’Hara and himself measures of whiskey and asked Kavanagh what he wanted.

  ‘I’ll make myself a brew, if that’s OK with yez,’ Kavanagh said. He pushed back his chair and put the kettle on the stove.

  ‘We’re going to need more men,’ Hennessy said to his back. Kavanagh shrugged but didn’t turn round as he busied himself washing the teapot and preparing a cup and saucer. ‘Can you arrange for half a dozen good men from Belfast?’

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea, Liam,’ said Kavanagh quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ O’Hara emptied his glass and mumbled something about checking the bombed outhouse and let himself out of the back door. ‘What do you mean, Jim?’ Hennessy repeated.

  Kavanagh turned round, drying his cup with a big, white tea-towel. ‘I’m just not sure that we’re going to be able to solve this just by bringing in more people, that’s all. There were a dozen here last night and they didn’t stop him.’

  ‘They weren’t prepared,’ said Hennessy.

  ‘They were prepared when they went into the wood,’ said Kavanagh. He put the cup and the cloth on the draining-board and sat down, looking earnestly at Hennessy. ‘Look, Liam, yer know that I’d do anything to protect ye, anything.

  But this isn’t a question of numbers, it’s quality not quantity. Yez could bring in a hundred men but they’re used to the city, not the country. They’re used to fighting in the streets not in the hills.’

  ‘So we bring in men from the farms. Come on Jim, that’s not what’s worrying you. Spit it out.’

  Kavanagh looked uneasy, as if knowing that what he would say would offend Hennessy. Hennessy found his reluctance to speak embarrassing, he’d always thought that they trusted each other implicitly.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jim?’ he pressed.
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br />   Kavanagh leant back in his chair, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between the two of them. ‘This man, this Chinaman, has made it personal. It’s ye he wants, right enough. Not the organisation. Ye. I just think that if ye use too many of the organisation’s resources, it could backfire on yez.’

  Hennessy nodded. Kavanagh had a point. There were men in Belfast and Dublin who were looking for an excuse to discredit him. They were unhappy at the move away from violence and blamed Hennessy for the switch in policy.

  ‘And the thing of it is, I don’t reckon that bringing in more men is going to help. Look at it this way, he could travel ten miles or so in a few hours with no trouble at all. And a ten-mile radius from here will cover about three hundred square miles – that includes Newry, Castlewellan, and Warrenpoint, and most of the Mourne Mountains. There aren’t enough men in the whole of Belfast to cover an area that large.’

  ‘So we don’t search for him. OK. But I have to have guards here. I can’t just sit here defenceless and wait for him to attack again.’

  ‘But how long do ye keep the guards here, Liam? A week? A month? A year? Round-the-clock protection from one man – think what a drain that would be on the organisation’s resources. Think how it would look. I’m telling ye this as yer friend, yer understand? Playing devil’s advocate, yer know?’

  Hennessy nodded. ‘I know, Jim. I don’t doubt your loyalty, you know that.’ He reached over and squeezed Kavanagh’s arm. ‘I already owe you my life, you don’t have to prove anything to me. And I know you have my best interests at heart. But what am I supposed to do? He obviously means business.’

  ‘If ye want my opinion, it was a mistake coming here. It’s too open, there are too many places to hide.’

  ‘It sounds like you’ve had a change of heart, Jim. I seem to remember that it was your idea to get me out of Belfast in the first place.’ He said it softly, not meaning to criticise.