Bandit Country

by Andrew Turpin

  She was holding a small camera pointed at the shipping container.

  “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  Tuesday, January 15, 2013

  Boston

  It was odd, Patrick thought, that the security barrier into the Pan-American Timber Products complex was up.

  The truck onto which the shipping container was loaded, complete with its illicit cargo, had left ten minutes earlier, and the guard should have lowered the barrier again immediately.

  McKinney had intended to drive out of the gates and then home, before the snow had really started piling up. Now, however, he decided to check with the guard that everything was okay before leaving.

  He pulled over to one side and braked to a halt, then jumped out of the cab and strode into the prefabricated security office inside the vehicle gate entrance.

  A jolt ran up his spine when he saw the chaos inside the hut. Papers, pens, folders, and stationery supplies were strewn all over the floor, and two drawers had been pulled out of the desk and left upside down on the floor.

  McKinney instinctively moved back into the doorway and scanned the room looking for intruders. It was only when he noticed a slight movement in a dark corner behind the fridge and heard a muffled grunting sound that he saw a man lying on the floor.

  He walked over, bent down, and turned the security guard over. A cloth that had been fastened in place with duct tape was stuffed in the man’s mouth, and his arms and legs were bound tight, also with tape.

  McKinney quickly released the guard, who was having difficulty breathing. It took him a few minutes to recover sufficiently to tell his boss how he had been attacked by a man and a woman who had conned him with a story about car breaking down, had knocked him out, and had then bound and gagged him.

  McKinney immediately thought about the night security guard he had seen. What was his name, Callum Wright? He knew that the night staff had been instructed to check in at the hut before starting their shift, and he knew that Wright had turned up early, because annoyingly, he had barged into the warehouse.

  “So why didn’t the night shift guard, Wright, see you when he checked in for his shift?” McKinney asked. “He came in early, didn’t he? And where is he now?”

  The guard looked confused. “No, Callum hasn’t turned up yet. His shift doesn’t start for another quarter of an hour. He’s never early. And you’re right, he always comes in here to check in, have a quick chat, when he starts.”

  It was then that McKinney realized.

  The guard was unable to give McKinney a description of the man because he said he’d been hit from behind and had immediately blacked out. The woman had long dark hair, was slim, good looking. Beyond that he couldn’t remember much.

  It definitely wasn’t a straightforward burglary, despite the chaos in the security office, which McKinney was now certain was a red herring. No burglar would have come so brazenly into the warehouse, bluffing his way in and out under the pretext of having a drink of water.

  So who the hell was the man, and would he have realized what McKinney was actually doing? He doubted it because when he thought back, the man hadn’t seen him doing anything more than drilling into a wooden beam. The rifle had been on the floor of the office but was in a zipped bag and a cardboard box. Nonetheless, it was worrisome.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Saturday, January 19, 2013

  Belfast

  The one-and-a-half-hour surveillance detection route Johnson and Jayne took around Belfast and its surroundings prior to their meeting with O’Neill in some ways seemed excessively long.

  But after the shooting of Donovan and the discovery of the tracking device on his wife’s car, Johnson didn’t want to take any chances, particularly as O’Neill had arranged to hold the meeting at an MI5 safe house, which he let slip was code-named Brown Bear. The last thing he wanted to do was give its location away to any watching dissident terrorist.

  “It’s good practice. If you’d seen what I’d seen, you wouldn’t question it,” he said, after Jayne finally hinted that he had driven far enough.

  Eventually Johnson was satisfied they were black, or free of any tail, and headed into Newtownards, about thirteen miles east of Belfast, where Brown Bear was located in the middle of an anonymous area of modern housing.

  The snowstorm in Boston, which had intensified the morning after Johnson and Fiona had left the timber yard, had delayed Johnson’s return to Northern Ireland and also had prevented Fiona from getting back to her Inside Track offices in Washington, DC.

  Finally he managed to get on a flight to Dublin, where Jayne met him and drove him back to Belfast.

  In the meantime, Jayne found a new apartment, also on Falls Road, only a few hundred yards away from the one belonging to Donovan that they had vacated.

  It took two days to arrange a meeting with O’Neill, who was working long hours at MI5 in preparation for the G8.

  Johnson and Jayne parked near a large secondary school half a mile away from Brown Bear and walked to the house, which was across the road from a park where children were playing with a dog and riding bikes.

  In contrast to their previous meeting, O’Neill had the hollow-eyed, drawn look of a man who had not had a good night’s sleep for some while. Hardly surprising, Johnson thought, given that one of his old buddies had recently been gunned down in his own house.

  His hair was greasy and unwashed, he had at least two days’ worth of stubble, and there were food spills on the front of his sweatshirt.

  “Come through, this way,” O’Neill said hurriedly. Before closing the front door, O’Neill glanced swiftly and unobtrusively up and down the road.

  Johnson insisted that the three of them sit well away from the windows, at the rear of the house in the kitchen. He folded his arms and glanced across at O’Neill. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Not really,” O’Neill said. “But I can’t afford to dwell on it. Now, what have you got for me?”

  Johnson briefed O’Neill on what had happened in Boston and gave details of the incoming cargo from McKinney.

  The snow in Boston hadn’t prevented the departure of the vast container ship Evans’s Girl. Johnson had worked out which ship it was after a check online to corroborate the brief details in the bill of lading he’d seen and then a phone call to the port to confirm that Evans’s Girl was the only container ship bound for Ireland from Boston at that time. Its destination was Dublin Port.

  Thankfully, both the GPS tracking devices that he had stuck inside the rifle case had worked as intended, confirming his research to be accurate.

  Johnson tapped on an app on his phone and showed O’Neill a map, on which two small icons—showing the trackers—were currently at a point on a background of blue, a thousand or so miles directly south of Greenland. The ship was about a third of the way through its 2,800-mile journey across the Atlantic.

  Next, Johnson took out his laptop and logged onto the remote-camera monitoring website so he could show O’Neill pictures from the devices he had planted in Duggan’s house and underground complex.

  O’Neill’s eyes widened a little. “You put cameras in Duggan’s place? That’s sticking your neck out.”

  “Someone’s got to,” Johnson said, pointedly. “At least if Duggan puts the stuff in his bunker—which is admittedly unlikely—we’ve now got a good chance of knowing about it.”

  He gave O’Neill the username and password for the monitoring site. “Might be wise for you to have access to this, just in case I have to go back in there.”

  “Joe didn’t come here to sit on his ass,” Jayne told O’Neill. “And neither did I. If it’s the G8 that Duggan’s targeting, we’ve only got nine days to sort this out, and we’re running out of opportunities.”

  Johnson smirked to himself. Jayne was struggling to contain her exasperation at what she saw as lethargy from the MI5 man.

  Jayne drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m assuming that police fai
led to pin anything on him over Moira’s murder, otherwise we’d have heard something?” she asked.

  “Correct, unfortunately,” O’Neill said. “As I expected, Duggan had plenty of alibis. A pub landlord, a takeaway restaurant owner, a farmer. All three of ’em said he’d been in Newry that night and had spent time with them. See, that’s what you’re up against. There were no forensics. He’s a clever bastard. Maybe it wasn’t him who did it. Maybe he got one of his cronies to do the dirty work. But there was nothing on them, either. They’re all obviously well trained. The crime scenes people and forensics are still doing tests, but I’m not holding out much hope, frankly.”

  “Okay,” Johnson said, trying hard to avoid sighing. “In that case we’re back to the G8.” He showed O’Neill a copy of the draft schedule for the school visit he had found on the USB drive taken from Duggan’s house. “What do you make of that?”

  O’Neill read it. “It’s obviously been leaked from the police, probably the chief constable’s office. Nobody else would have this detail at this stage. The problem is that it doesn’t help us hugely.”

  Johnson knew what he meant. All it proved was that someone had stolen the document and leaked it. In terms of pinning charges on Duggan, it was next to useless, despite giving a clear indication as to what his thinking might be.

  “We still need to catch him in the act,” O’Neill said. “Which brings us back to why I went to a lot of trouble to recruit an agent close to Duggan.”

  “Can I ask who?”

  “I’ll tell you sometime.”

  “But is he going to give us what we need?”

  “That’s the million dollar question,” O’Neill conceded. He shifted in his seat and pursed his lips. “Stopping a few pipe bomb attacks on policemen based on his information doesn’t really count for much if we’re missing out on the big fish.”

  “Like the chief constable,” Johnson said.

  O’Neill nodded. “It’s extremely frustrating. I’m due to meet him later this afternoon, actually. So let’s see what we get. I’m not optimistic.”

  “Are there any others in the brigade, apart from your agent, who you know?” Johnson asked. “Any who might help you?”

  O’Neill ran briefly through the brigade members, mentioning Liam McGarahan, who he understood to be the brigade’s intelligence officer, and Danny McCormick, thought to be the quartermaster. “I don’t think they’ll turn informer, though.”

  Johnson nodded. “Okay, then. So the question is, who’s next for the bullet? Big fish or little fish?”

  O’Neill leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “I’ve no idea. Could be me—or you.”

  Saturday, January 19, 2013

  Belfast

  Dennehy steered his blue Vauxhall cautiously out of Belfast city center and out along Newtownards Road, where British union flags fluttered in people’s gardens and unionist slogans were painted on walls. Someone had even daubed a concrete bollard with red, blue, and white paint.

  The huge yellow arches of Samson and Goliath, the twin gantry cranes that towered more than three hundred feet above the Harland & Wolff shipyard away to his left—the yard that built the Titanic—caught Dennehy’s attention. The cranes stood like sentries on duty, watching and seeing everything going on down below, including, he knew, the odd tout passing information to police and intelligence service handlers in homes, pubs, cafés, and parks.

  He flicked on his windshield wipers to deal with a splattering of raindrops as he drove past the tall spire of St. Matthew’s Church on his right, a rare Catholic enclave standing defiantly in a Protestant landscape, and then on past the Great Eastern pub with its UVF flag outside.

  Dennehy tried to keep a close eye on his rearview mirror, as he always did when he ventured into East Belfast. These days he was never sure whether he was under surveillance and if so, who might be watching him.

  It could be one of Duggan’s volunteers on the brigade side. The OC definitely had him on his list of suspects, he knew that. But equally, it might be someone working for O’Neill’s colleagues within MI5. Increasingly, Dennehy felt caught between the two, slowly squeezed under the expectations that were put on him, with no easy or obvious way out.

  He felt ill-equipped to deal with it: the subterfuge, the surveillance, and the risk of exposure. He was an electrician, not a trained spy, and although O’Neill and his previous handler had given him some instruction in street craft, like how to check for surveillance and evade detection as he went for meetings with his handlers, he knew that he wasn’t a natural at it. He felt too nervous, and he was certain that the likelihood of detection was greater than it should be.

  If he were honest with himself, a year of being GRANITE was more than enough.

  Dennehy flicked the Vauxhall sharply and suddenly right down Albertbridge Road, then took a left and then another left onto Beersbridge Road before turning right onto Hyndford Street.

  He checked his mirror. The only vehicle in sight was a black Volvo 4x4 a couple of hundred yards behind him, with two bikes mounted on a roof rack.

  Dennehy was now as confident as he could be that he had no tail. He parked near Greenville Park before walking through it, past the bedraggled bowling green, the tennis courts, and the football stadium.

  He sat on a bench and pretended to make a phone call but used the moment to make a final check for any sign of surveillance. The only other people in the park were two young men on the far side messing about on mountain bikes, trying to do wheelies.

  Dennehy stood and walked on until he drew near to Orangefield High School on Cameronian Drive. There, sitting fifty yards from the entrance, in a familiar dark blue Ford Mondeo station wagon, was O’Neill.

  Dennehy opened the front passenger door and climbed in. O’Neill was wearing a blond wig and a pair of glasses with tortoiseshell frames.

  What’s all this about?

  “You’re in the clear, no tail?” O’Neill asked, his forehead creased with worry lines, his black leather jacket done up tightly, a maroon scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “Certain as I can be,” Dennehy said. “You’re taking no chances, are you? Nice disguise.”

  “Can’t afford to. How are things?”

  Dennehy leaned back against the headrest and momentarily closed his eyes. “Shit. Duggan’s on the warpath. He knows he’s got a tout, and I’d say I have to be near the top of his list, if not at the top. Feckin’ stressful.”

  “All right, well, stress goes with the territory. You know that. You’re doing a good job, but I need more, frankly, as I’ve told you before. If you can do that, I’ll look after you,” O’Neill said. He always said that, but Dennehy was not confident that he meant it. What did “look after you” mean in practice? Dennehy doubted it would amount to much.

  “Okay, come on, then. What you got?” O’Neill asked, his voice staccato and sharp.

  Dennehy switched his attention back to his MI5 paymaster. “One thing,” he said. “I’ve been told there’s a pipe bomb planned across at Irvinestown, Enniskillen, Wednesday morning, first thing. It’s a copper, a Prod. I don’t have the road.”

  “Are you involved in it?” O’Neill asked.

  “Indirectly. I’m picking up some gear from a cache and then doing a drop in Hannahstown. I’m standing in for another volunteer who was originally detailed to do the job. That’s it.”

  “Okay, I’ll make sure you get a clear run in and out, and then we’ll tail whoever does the pickup from you in Hannahstown after that. We can check which cops live in Irvinestown and alert them.”

  “Right.”

  O’Neill tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “But that’s not what I’m really interested in right now. I’m more focused higher up the tree. Is there anything going on around the G8?”

  “Nope. Nothing G8, nothing else at all right now.”

  “Are you 100 percent sure? No weapons, ammunition coming in from anywhere, being moved across borders, or anything like that?”
/>   “Yes, I’m sure,” Dennehy said.

  He glanced at O’Neill, who was giving a thousand-yard stare out the windshield down the road, where two guys on bikes had just disappeared around the corner. It was obvious he didn’t believe what he’d just been told.

  Dennehy swore under his breath.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Wednesday, January 23, 2013

  Forkhill

  Dennehy sensed his wife’s presence, despite his closed eyes, as he tried to settle his mind before yet another meeting with Duggan.

  When he opened his right eye, Tess was standing there, leaning against the doorframe, legs crossed, holding a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “What the hell is this?” she said in a level tone.

  In his armchair, Dennehy opened the other eye and studied the piece of paper she was wielding across the other side of the living room. It was creased and torn and bore an Ulster Bank logo at the top.

  He knew immediately what had happened. Shit, the bloody laundry basket—my jeans.

  “Twelve and a half thousand bloody pounds. More than a thousand a month for the past year. Why didn’t you tell me?” she said. “I thought you’d told them no?”

  He had known for some time that she suspected, even knew, deep down. It was probably his mood swings, his occasional evasiveness about his whereabouts. But he had found it hard to tell her, and she presumably didn’t want to ask, not without anything concrete to go on.

  So it had been like the elephant in the room, casting a dark shadow over their lives, yet undiscussed, unmentionable. Now there was no more ducking the issue, not anymore.

  “How else am I supposed to pay the mortgage, pay for you and the kids, keep us going?” he said.

  “No wonder Duggan’s got it in for you. Does he know?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Well, I’m not sure. He suspects, but he suspects all of us.”

  “What, because of all the jobs that have been scuppered?”