Johnson glanced at Jayne. “Looks like we’re going to play at being police detectives for an hour or so,” he said.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Belfast
Jayne surveyed the crime scene. Under the glare thrown off by some temporary floodlights, four uniformed police officers and two forensics experts in white suits were working inside an area cordoned off with white plastic tape. There was a white tent, presumably over the spot where the body fell. But that was it. No other officers were visible.
“I think it would be better if I do this,” Jayne said. “Nobody’s going to talk to an American. Not one going door-to-door. It’s a unionist area. They’ll be okay with a Brit calling on them.”
Johnson nodded. “Makes sense.”
Jayne climbed out of the car and walked toward some houses that overlooked the shops where O’Neill had been gunned down.
She got short shrift at the first four doors she knocked on, all of them belonging to neat semidetached redbrick houses.
An old man who came out of the first house looked at her suspiciously. “We don’t like talking to spooks around here, especially British ones,” he said after she had introduced herself. “I don’t mind the local police, I know them, but they haven’t been in yet. Sorry, but I’ll wait and speak to them.”
At the second, a stressed housewife wearing a cooking apron and carrying a baby, whose dog was barking inside the house, sighed deeply. “It’s not going to make any difference, love, what we say. I didn’t see anything anyway. I was changing the baby’s nappy when I heard the bangs outside. I’m assuming it was a dissident shooting, but they never get caught or prosecuted, do they?”
She received similarly negative responses at the next two. By this time she was beginning to feel not only discouraged but conspicuous as well.
At the fifth house, across the road from the dry cleaner’s shop, a youngster in his late teens answered the door. When Jayne asked for his parents, he replied in the negative but then asked who she was. So she explained, briefly.
“You’re investigating the shooting?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” Jayne said.
The boy shook his head and folded his arms. “No, I was busy upstairs,” he said in a low-pitched Belfast accent.
“Okay, thanks anyway,” Jayne said. She turned to leave and took a couple of steps down the path.
Then from behind her, the youngster spoke again. “Actually, I think I might have seen something.” She turned. He had lank, dark hair that needed shampooing and a black T-shirt with a Grand Theft Auto logo on the front.
Jayne refocused on the youth and walked back up the path. “What did you see? Anything could be useful.”
“I was looking out of the window when I saw a white van parking across the road, one with a very high roof. A Volkswagen Transporter. I know that because my uncle’s got one. I thought it must be a dry cleaning van and didn’t take any notice. Then ten minutes later, I looked again, and at the back, there was a square black hole at the top that hadn’t been there before. I thought it was one of those police speed traps. We sometimes get them on this road because it’s straight and people go fast. But it looked different and had no police markings on the van.”
The boy paused and looked at Jayne. “The next thing I know, as I’m looking at this van and the black hole, trying to work out what it is, there’s a flash at the hole, a massive explosion, then another one, and I look down the road and there’s a guy lying there, blood everywhere. About fifteen seconds later, the van starts up and drives off. And that’s it. Someone must have called the police, and the ambulance, and they came straightaway. Since then it’s been crazy out there.”
Jayne knew immediately what had happened. It must have been Duggan, operating from a specially adapted van, set up as a mobile sniping platform. She remembered from her time with the SIS in Belfast that IRA sniper gangs of old had used similar tactics.
“Thank you very much, that’s very helpful,” Jayne said. “You were very observant. Is there anything else you noticed? Did you see the driver of the van and can you remember the registration plates?”
“Sorry, no. I didn’t see the driver, and I didn’t think to check the plates. I should have done that.” The boy now looked downcast.
“Don’t worry. Did you see any markings on the side of the van? Any logos, company names, that kind of thing.”
“No, not on the side I saw.”
“Fine,” said Jayne. “Police might come around and interview you as well and ask similar questions, but that’s normal procedure.”
Jayne said goodbye and left. As she did so, her cell phone rang. It was Noreen.
“I got your message,” Noreen said. “You’re clutching at straws, you know. So many of those files just vanished or were burned in a fire we had at Carrickfergus.”
“Yes, I realize that,” Jayne said.
“And you realize that there’s not a cat in hell’s chance that either of those two guys would ever have been appointed chief constable if there was any whiff of this kind of thing hanging around them? I think it’s a nonstarter.”
“Yes. Okay, point taken. Thanks, Noreen.”
Jayne made her way back to the Mazda, where Johnson was waiting.
“I got some info. Duggan was in a white van,” she said. She described what the boy in the house had told her.
Johnson pushed his head back against the driver’s seat headrest and closed his eyes momentarily. “Okay,” he said. “There’s lots of VW Transporter vans but can’t be too many high-roofed ones. I’ll let Campbell know. Maybe there’s a chance they can put the call out and pull it in before Duggan does more damage.”
Jayne glanced at him. “I don’t like to say this, Joe, but if Duggan’s as smart as he seems, the van is almost certainly tucked away in some garage, off the road and out of sight. If he’s adapted it to allow him to use a rifle through a flap in the back, he’s going to want to keep it away from close scrutiny.”
Johnson nodded. “True. Unless he’s actually using the damn thing.”
She suggested that he should check the feeds from the cameras he had planted in Duggan’s house, on the off chance that the batteries in one or two of them might still be working. It seemed unlikely after more than two weeks but worth a look. At least it might show whether Duggan had returned to Forkhill, which she thought might be the case, or was still out elsewhere, which would be a more worrisome scenario.
The feed on Johnson’s cell phone took a long time to load, as usual, but only one camera at Willows Farm remained functional: the one in the kitchen he had hidden between two saucepans on a high shelf. The others in the house and in the underground bunker and tunnels were completely dead.
Jayne peered over Johnson’s shoulder to look at the screen. The kitchen appeared to not have been used recently. Two coffee mugs stood upside down on the draining board. The countertops were clean and tidy. A dishcloth had been hung over the tap to dry. The laptop with the blue cover that had been stolen from Beth Doyle’s house was no longer there.
“Where the hell has the bastard gone?” Johnson said. He tugged at the small hole on the top of his right ear.
“It’s more about where he’s going to strike from—if he’s going to strike,” Jayne said. “Not where he’s gone. I get the feeling that Campbell wants to catch him in the act with his big bloody gun, not sitting in a coffee bar without a shred of evidence on him. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy.”
Her phone rang. It was Noreen again.
“I just remembered,” Noreen said. “I’ve got a vague recollection that the investigation team at Carrickfergus, the Stevens inquiry people, took copies of the files to Nottinghamshire police headquarters for safekeeping. I might be wrong, but I think my colleague Sarah arranged it. But that would have been in 1989. I’ve no idea what happened to the files after that.”
“Bloody hell. Is there any chance of finding out more?” Jayne asked, her voice rising a few to
nes. “If they had backups, surely they would have investigated anything significant in those files, even if the originals had gone?”
There was a short silence. “That’s where you’re wrong,” Noreen said. “They just didn’t. The inquiry ended up being more limited than people expected. There were whispers that many files weren’t touched at all because people in high places pulled strings to put the block on many investigations.”
“What about the Historical Enquiries Team, then?” Jayne asked. “Surely it’s their job to go through all those files?”
“It is their job—but they’ve been completely overworked, unable to spend enough time on files, and ineffective in many ways.”
“Well, do you have any contacts in Nottingham you could call to find out?”
“Doubt it. If Sarah did the work, as I recall, she might have one. There was a liaison lady whom I dealt with sometimes. But I’ve no idea if she’s still with Nottinghamshire police. I’ll see if I can dig up her number. It was a long time ago.”
Jayne thanked her and ended the call.
“Did you get all that?” she asked Johnson, who had been leaning in close to her, his cheek nudging against the top of her head, trying to listen to Noreen’s voice.
“Mostly. Sounds like a long shot. But perhaps our only shot as far as Campbell’s concerned.”
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Belfast
Johnson knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he came up with something that would advance this investigation before he went to bed. It was almost midnight, and time was rapidly running out.
He lifted the lid of his laptop once again and skimmed through the collection of files he had put together over the previous three weeks. He ended up focusing on the one labeled “Visit.”
Johnson grasped the edge of the table with both hands, suddenly realizing with great irritation that he had missed a trick. There had been no useful electronic footprint, no helpful metadata, in the document containing the draft details of the Obama school visit that he had obtained from the USB flash drive at Duggan’s house.
But if the flash drive had been handed to Duggan by the mole inside the Police Service of Northern Ireland, then maybe there was a possibility that the person’s fingerprints were still be on the plastic housing.
Johnson grabbed his phone and tapped out a secure text message to Campbell.
Think you should get flash drive from police mole fingerprinted. It might ID him and trail might lead to Duggan. I have the drive here. It’s mostly been in a plastic bag. Joe.
A minute later, Johnson’s phone rang. Campbell sounded exhausted, his voice flat and fading.
“Good thought,” Campbell said. “I’m losing the plot—should have thought of that straightaway. We’ll get the thing straight over to the Fingerprint Bureau, and they can check it out overnight.”
Campbell said he would have a car sent immediately to collect the device from the apartment where Johnson and Jayne were staying on Falls Road.
“Any progress in the hunt for Duggan’s van?” Johnson asked.
“Nothing. He’s obviously gone to ground.”
“Yes, but I’m certain he’s not at his house.”
“What makes you think that?” Campbell asked.
Johnson sighed. Now he was going to have to confess. He explained how, during the same covert visit when he obtained the flash drive, he had planted surveillance cameras inside Duggan’s property, one of which remained serviceable.
He heard Campbell swear under his breath. “I don’t want to know,” he said.
“Okay, I’m not telling you. It’s about the greater good,” Johnson said. “I’m not going to bore you with the details now. I’ll tell you when this is over, but he had me imprisoned in his underground bunker for two days after we tracked him smuggling cigarettes and a sniper rifle in from the US. Jayne and O’Neill rescued me.”
There was silence from Campbell. Johnson decided to change the subject; Campbell was unlikely to be too happy with a US civilian running some sort of unofficial crime detection operation on his own patch, behind his back.
And Johnson knew Campbell would be even less happy if the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team—set up in 2005 to investigate unsolved murders committed during the Troubles of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, including those committed by British Army soldiers—were to turn its attention to the shooting of Alfie Duggan in 1984. That was a card that Johnson could play if needed.
Shortly afterward, a plainclothes policeman knocked at Johnson’s apartment door, produced his ID, and took away the flash drive in a secure plastic bag.
Johnson felt that, barring something unexpected materializing in the morning, this was his last hope of getting to the bottom of what Duggan’s plan was for the next day.
Before he went to bed at about half past one, Johnson made yet another check on the remaining video surveillance camera at Willows Farm. Nothing had changed in the kitchen, nothing had been moved. The same empty coffee mugs were still on the draining board. It was obvious to Johnson that Duggan was spending the night somewhere else, preparing for the following day.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Monday, January 28, 2013
Belfast
Johnson’s phone awakened him at just before five-thirty. It was Campbell, who clearly had spent even less time in bed than Johnson.
The overnight tests and checks run by the PSNI’s Fingerprint Bureau on the USB flash drive had come back in, Campbell told him.
After running them through the system, a match had been found for Fergus Kane, the public affairs officer responsible for the force’s relationships with the various government agencies across Northern Ireland and in the Republic.
Although not a policeman, Campbell said, Kane had visited major crime scenes on several occasions and had therefore been routinely fingerprinted for elimination purposes by the forensics teams. That meant his prints were in the system.
Two officers had been dispatched to arrest Kane and haul him in for questioning, Campbell added. A search for the white van Duggan had been using had so far drawn a blank and was proving difficult without a registration plate number.
“I’m going to be snowed under dealing with politicians and G8 officials today, as you can imagine,” Campbell told Johnson. “So I’ve briefed my assistant chief constable, Norman Arnside, who’s responsible for crime operations. He’ll be your main contact today, but either he or I will keep you updated if there are more developments.”
Johnson slid out of bed. He didn’t envy Kane, whoever he was. Police interrogation methods doubtless differed from those employed by dissident Republicans, as the fate of Dennehy had demonstrated. But nonetheless, he would have an extremely unpleasant experience, with Campbell on the war path.
He was about to go and wake Jayne when she emerged from her bedroom.
“I just had a thought,” Jayne said, before Johnson had a chance to tell her about Kane. “If Duggan had his van adapted as a sniping platform, then somebody must have done the work on it.”
“Good point,” Johnson said. “But the problem is, how many outfits are there in Ulster that can do that sort of work? Probably dozens.”
“Actually, it’s unlikely to be many,” she said. “Most don’t want to work with violent dissidents. Maybe whoever modified the van is on the PSNI watch lists.”
“But would Duggan confide in someone like that? Wouldn’t he just ask for a job to be done and not explain what he was going to do with the vehicle afterward? And why would the person know where Duggan was?”
Jayne shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s second-guessing. Let’s find out. Anyway, I can’t think of anything else constructive we can do right now to resolve this.”
Johnson grabbed his phone. “Okay. I’ll contact Campbell; why don’t you try your friend Noreen. And ask her if there’s any progress on those files in Nottingham.”
He tapped out a text message to Campbell. Can we get a list of car repair shops, w
elders, etc., who might have IRA/dissident allegiances and might have had the ability to turn Duggan’s van into a sniper platform?
A reply came back a few minutes later. Will try and get someone onto this. Good thought.
“Try?” Johnson said out loud.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Belfast
Duggan kicked the rear tire of the Grizzly quad bike and stood hands on hips. He turned to O'Driscoll, who had arrived at the garage just off Falls Road five minutes earlier. “Feckin’ welder. If you need a job doing, do it yourself,” he said. He looked at the sniper’s platform on the back of the Grizzly and kicked the tire again.
His anger was only partly due to the defective welding job. The rest was down to his ongoing fury, which had hardly dissipated over the past couple of days, over Johnson’s escape from his bunker and the death of his IO, McGarahan, in the car blast outside his house, which had also blown in all the windows on the front of the property.
He knew very well he could have been the one in the Audi.
But Duggan tried to put that out of his mind and focus on the issue at hand. A joint on the underside of the aluminum plate, where it was joined to the tubes, had become detached, which meant the sniper’s platform wobbled when Duggan tried to rest his Barrett rifle on it. It was just about usable, but it certainly wasn’t conducive to the kind of accuracy that he was going to require later that day. A wobble at the wrong moment could torpedo the entire operation.
“Bollocks,” Duggan shouted, louder this time. There was no alternative. He was going to have to pop back to Arthur Higgins’ garage and have him do an emergency repair.
O'Driscoll climbed up into the back of the van and carefully placed the five-foot-long black case containing the Barrett next to the dividing panel that separated the cab from the cargo hold. He picked up an AK-47 assault rifle from the floor, placed it next to the Barrett’s case, and covered both weapons with an old tarp.
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