At least it was cigarettes and not hard drugs, Johnson thought. That was one thing about the Irish Republicans: most of them hated drugs, he knew that.
Johnson tugged at his right ear. “Look, have you told anyone about all this before?”
“No. I’ve been too worried about stirring it all up, worried about what my stepfather might do. But after today? He can go to hell.”
She yawned deeply. “I’m dozing, need my bed. I can tell you more about all this another time. I’m not going to get up the stairs to bed by myself. Can you . . . ?”
Johnson looked at her. Her low-pitched Irish burr was irresistible. “Okay, I’ll give you a hand. But I don’t want to—”
“It’s not an invitation, don’t worry, Joe.” She smiled.
Oh, God.
“I mean, I do want to,” he corrected himself. “But you’re young enough to be my—”
She interrupted before he could complete the cliché. “Don’t say that. That’s a killer. You can borrow my car tonight to get wherever you need to go. Bring it back tomorrow or Monday, okay? It won’t be any good to me for a day or two, not in this state.”
She stood and held out her arms for support. Johnson also stood and slipped his arm around her waist again. On the way up the stairs he found himself pausing for breaks every two steps, when in reality there was no need.
But once out of the house and behind the wheel of the battered old Corsa, his mind was instantly elsewhere.
Johnson pulled out his phone and began to type in a message to an old contact, a friend, an old lover, in fact, dating back to his time in Afghanistan, well before his marriage. It was to Jayne Robinson, a former British intelligence officer with the Secret Intelligence Service who had helped him on a couple of big freelance assignments in the previous eighteen months.
He knew that Jayne had done at least one stint in Northern Ireland while at the SIS, otherwise known as MI6.
And Moira had made his mind up for him: he was going to stay and do this job in Northern Ireland. What he now needed was Jayne’s help.
Part Two
Chapter Ten
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Belfast
The Union Jack bunting crisscrossed the road, and Ulster Volunteer Force flags and stickers adorned the lampposts. Johnson clamped the phone to his left ear and eyed the Great Eastern pub, which was on the other side of Newtownards Road from the bench he was sitting on.
The Great Eastern was deep in the heart of unionist, Protestant unionist East Belfast. Donovan had summoned him there for a lunchtime “livener” to celebrate after Johnson had called him first thing that morning to say he had decided to take on the job.
But before going into the pub, Johnson needed to get hold of Jayne Robinson. There had been no reply to his text message the previous night, so he decided to give her a call.
She answered almost immediately. “Joe! I’m in Tanzania. How are you doing? I only just got your message half an hour ago,” she said.
Jayne had just gotten back to her hotel following a six-day ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro as part of an expedition to raise funds for an African schools charity, and she was due to head back to London on Monday.
Kilimanjaro? Typical of her, Johnson thought. Just two months older than Johnson, at fifty-one, she was probably fitter. Unconsciously, he patted the pack of Marlboros in his jacket pocket.
He gave her a quick summary of the task facing him in Northern Ireland and asked if she was interested in helping.
“Quite possibly,” she said. “I’ve got nothing else on right now. I think Northern Ireland will have changed a lot since I was there with MI6, though. Ulster reminds me of one of those maze of mirrors things we used to get at fairgrounds. Nothing’s what it seems, nobody’s who you think they are.”
She promised she’d think about it while heading home.
But he’d have bet the wad of twenty pound notes in his wallet on her coming. He somehow knew she’d drop everything if there was a chance of a stimulating job at hand. That was what motivated her. That was why she’d left her boring desk job at the Secret Intelligence Service’s London headquarters the previous year to go freelance. Jayne loved being out in the field, he told himself. She’d do it.
Johnson hung up and lit a cigarette—he felt he needed one before going into the Great Eastern. He’d been in Belfast for not much more than two days, and already it felt as though he was being sucked in, slowly but surely.
An ex-army businessman with a slightly opaque background, an aging sniper with a grudge and a violent streak, yet who was wily enough to have escaped prosecution. And a bunch of dissident Republicans unable to let go of their guns and bombs. It was an interesting mix.
And that’s not to mention the sniper’s stunning, feisty stepdaughter.
He would also need someone to do some checks at the US end, given the link to McKinney, and he knew exactly who to call on for that job: Fiona Heppenstall, an investigative reporter based in Washington, DC. Another one he’d had a brief fling with, the year after his wife had died.
Why do I do these things?
If it were indeed a US-based fund-raising operation for the Real IRA, then it would be a good one for Fiona. She was a fearless operator—she’d proved that when helping him out on the hunt for the old Nazi fugitive a year or so back, during which she’d been shot and badly injured.
Johnson threw the remnants of his cigarette on the ground, crushed it with his foot, and crossed the road toward the pub. After a few months of relative inactivity back home in Portland, he recognized the old familiar rush in his system once again.
When he walked into the bar, Ulsterman Van Morrison’s new album was playing over the music system. There were Union Jacks and St. George English flags on the walls, and a huge man stood at the bar wearing a Manchester United football shirt; he had a Union flag tattoo on his forearm.
There was no mistaking the politics and the sentiment here.
Johnson spotted Donovan sitting at the back of the pub with another man, their heads together, deep in conversation. He paused for several seconds, uncertain about interrupting what was clearly an intense discussion. But then he carried on.
As Johnson arrived at the table, Donovan looked up, a worried expression on his face. But it cleared immediately, and he pushed a full pint of Guinness across the table at him, its creamy head spilling slightly down the outside of the glass. “Joe, there you go, sit down. I got that for you. When in Ireland . . .”
Johnson thanked him. “I don’t normally start drinking midmorning, but this once.”
Donovan gestured toward his companion, a man who looked to be in his late fifties. “Meet an old friend of mine, Brendan O’Neill. We go back to the ’80s. We used to drink in this bar back then, even,” Donovan said. He lowered his voice. “He’s also ex-British army and interested in what I’m interested in, but he’s coming from a slightly different angle—he does what you used to do.”
Johnson raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yes?”
“Intelligence. Works for MI5. You can trust him, he knows what I’m trying to do. He’s behind me with it, unofficially.”
“Right.” He looked at O’Neill and inclined his head toward a Union Jack hanging on the wall. “Safe ground for you around here, I guess?” Johnson knew that MI5, the British security service, had a large base at Holywood, in East Belfast.
“Probably not totally safe, but safer than some places, yes.” O’Neill shook Johnson’s hand.
Donovan explained that he would be out of Ulster for much of the following two weeks talking to investors in London and Berlin and that he’d invited O’Neill along today because he might be able to help Johnson. “Information, equipment. Whatever.”
Johnson nodded. “Yes, that would be useful.”
“I’m pleased you’re going to do this job,” Donovan said. “We both are. Brendan here runs informers, agents, but despite his experience he battles to make headway too, believe it or not.”
Johnson nodded. He’d already briefly told Donovan about Moira but now filled the two men in on the rest of the details, including her car.
He also briefed them about Jayne, at which point O’Neill raised his eyebrows a fraction.
“Do you really need to bring someone else in here?” O’Neill asked. “I mean, between us, me and Michael here should be able to give you all the help you need. Plus, we’ve got agents in south Armagh, of course. We get good information from them. Taken together, I think we’ve got sufficient resources.”
“No,” Johnson said. “If I’m doing a proper investigation, I want to have someone here with me I’ve worked with before and trust. That’s not a problem, is it?”
O’Neill looked at Donovan, who nodded.
“If you think it’s important, I agree,” Donovan said to Johnson. “I’ll pay for her.”
“Great. That’s a good decision, you won’t regret it,” Johnson said. Feeling relieved, he leaned back in his chair and turned to O’Neill. “So your agents in south Armagh, how are they working out?” Johnson asked him.
“It’s working,” O’Neill said. “Though still some way to go, if I’m honest. There’s not a hundred percent flow of information always.”
“As we saw in Crossmaglen with the chief constable,” Johnson said pointedly. “Guess the shit’s hit the fan over that one?”
“You could say that,” O’Neill said. He folded his hands behind his head. “The way it’s shaping up, I’ll be lucky to keep my job, frankly. But the least said about that the better.”
“I’ve been there, got the T-shirt,” Johnson said. “Lost my job with the CIA in Pakistan once. Less said the better about that, too.”
Donovan raised an eyebrow. There was a short silence. “Was that where your ear was injured, as well?” he asked.
Johnson self-consciously tugged at the old wound. “Afghanistan, actually. Stray sniper bullet in Jalalabad, years back. I was lucky.”
O’Neill nodded. “Yes. As long as you make sure the Republicans don’t give you a matching deal for the left ear while you’re here, you’ll be fine.”
Donovan laughed, causing an elderly man at the next table to turn around and stare.
When Donovan’s guffawing ceased, Johnson told them he was thinking of heading back to south Armagh to quietly look around, hopefully with Jayne, if she was able to join him.
He drained his pint of Guinness.
Donovan tapped the table with his fingers. He could let Johnson use his wife’s car, he said, so Johnson could avoid driving a rental car and be less conspicuous. “She’s away in Hong Kong visiting her sister for the next three weeks, so it’s not being used.” The car, a Toyota Avensis, also had the advantage of a specially fitted magnetic bomb detector, he said.
“Bomb detector?” Johnson asked.
“Yes, it lets you know if anything magnetic’s been attached to your car, whether it’s a bomb, a tracking device, anything really. It works with an app on your phone and sends you a message if anything registers. It detects any change in the magnetic field in the car bodywork, or something like that. I’ve got one on my car too.”
Donovan showed Johnson how to download the app onto his iPhone, saved the company’s contact details into Johnson’s contacts list, and then activated the app for him using his own email address and password.
O’Neill took a long drink from his glass. “Look, my friend, I don’t want to teach my granny to suck eggs, but here’s a bit of advice from me. Tell yourself you’re in a war zone and take the same precautions you would if you were somewhere like Kabul or Baghdad or wherever. Check for everything. If you’re getting in a car, look underneath every time you get in. Make sure you’re not followed. I can get you a gun, if you need one.”
“Okay, thanks. I appreciate the advice. And if you can get me an M9 or a 950, that’d be great. Same as I have back home,” Johnson said. “If you can get a Walther, too, that would be helpful. That’s what Jayne uses.”
“Right, got it. Beretta man. Should be doable. Hopefully I’ll have them both over the next few days.”
“Thanks,” Johnson said.
“You need to be damned careful around here,” O’Neill said to Johnson. “You need to remember one thing, dealing with these dissident Republicans. They may not be quite as well organized as the IRA of old, but there’s enough of the old stagers left to instill discipline into the others, at least in some brigades. South Armagh’s one of those. Underestimate them at your peril. They’re well armed too. But you’ve seen that already. The politicians like to dismiss them and downplay the threat. Don’t make the same mistake.”
Chapter Eleven
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Belfast
The three men were dressed in anonymous woolly hats, waterproof jackets, and thick gloves. The tallest of them, Duggan, pulled his zip up to the top around his neck, pulled his scarf tight, and nodded at the other two.
It was time to go for a walk.
They left their cars and spoke only intermittently as they hiked from the parking lot next to the coffee shop up the single-lane road toward the TV transmission station on Black Mountain, high above Belfast.
The brisk January morning wind bit hard, despite the sunshine. The shortest of the men, Fergus Kane, a wiry, bearded figure, took a pair of prescription sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.
A pair of female joggers, both clad in pink and black Lycra with thick gloves and earmuffs, came back past them in the opposite direction, and a falcon cruised high above.
Just before they reached the tall transmitter masts, which carried several satellite dishes and radio transmitters, the hikers cut down a footpath to the right, signposted Ridge Trail, which led across the treeless, boggy moorland.
Patches of snow were still visible from the storm that had come just before the New Year, and the trio crunched across frozen puddles on the path.
The walking route, in Divis and the Black Mountain National Trust area, was one of several the group used at random. It was safer than meeting in the city.
Finally, when they were well away from the masts, the silence was broken.
“So, I guess there’s a shitstorm going on?” asked the third man, Dennehy.
“Shitstorm?” Kane said. “That’s one way of describing it. There’s a bloody witch hunt started; they’re after whoever leaked it.”
“But there are no fingers pointing in your direction?” Duggan asked.
Kane shrugged. “Doubt it. Thing is, it was quite a long list of people in the know by the end, and not just in Simonson’s office. Officers in Crossmaglen had to be told, a few people at MI5, helicopter staff, not to mention the secretary of state’s office.”
“Could have come from anywhere,” Duggan said. “Cross would have to be the favorite, I guess?”
“Yeah, definitely, they think it came out of Cross.”
“Right, well, it was good info, bang on,” Duggan said. “You’re earning your money, so far.”
“Yes, well, I’m getting so bloody stressed over all this I’m not sleeping well,” Kane said. He walked with his eyes to the ground, head bowed.
The three men fell back into silence again. They continued along the gravel path as two other groups of walkers, all laughing and joking, full of nodded acknowledgments for Duggan’s group, came past them in the opposite direction.
Now they were near to the 1,275-foot-high peak of Black Mountain, which offered spectacular views over the entire city of Belfast.
As they walked on, the scenery unfolded in front of them: Lough Neagh in the west over to Strangford Lough in the east, the streets, tower blocks, and factories sand
wiched between.
“There’s one more piece of information I need,” Duggan said. “Then you can relax for a while.”
The diminutive police public affairs officer glanced up at Duggan, at least half a foot taller, who strode along at his right-hand side. Kane adjusted his sunglasses. “What do you mean?”
Duggan gave a thin-lipped smile. “It’s for a big job, potentially. So it’s quite urgent.”
Now Kane stopped walking. He put his hands on his hips and turned to face Duggan, his forehead below his woolly hat deeply creased with horizontal lines.
“What, the G8?”
Duggan said nothing.
Then Kane gave a nervous laugh. “You’ve no chance. Security will be tighter than a duck’s backside, especially after the chief constable. You won’t be able to get near it. There’ll be checkpoints, helicopters, rooftop snipers, men with binoculars, hundreds of them.”
Duggan took off his gloves and pulled a cutting from the Belfast Telegraph out of his pocket. “There’s something I’d like to know. Here, look at this.” He pointed to the same circled paragraph he had shown to his brigade colleagues at his home near Forkhill. “There’s this community visit Obama and Cameron are going to do, at some as-yet-unknown location in Ulster. It says so in the Telegraph, so it must be right.”
Kane grimaced. “I must be a mind reader. As it happens, I brought something that’ll give you an outline of that. A preliminary schedule, which came in yesterday, so I brought a copy. Be careful with it. Only about seven people are on the distribution list, so it’ll be a short witch-hunt if they know that one has leaked.”
He reached inside his jacket and took out a red and black plastic USB flash drive in a small, clear plastic bag, which he held out to Duggan.
Duggan took the bag and put it into his trouser pocket. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s what I like about you. You’re always one step ahead of the game. This schedule is just preliminary, you said. Does it say which school or other location it will be at?”
Bandit Country Page 9