When the firing stopped, Arnside cut in. “Delta, did you get him?”
“No,” muttered the officer. “He’s flat on the ground. Couldn’t get a clear shot.”
Johnson looked back at the cockpit. The pilot’s body, on the right, was slumped at forty-five degrees, his head a bloody mess. Johnson couldn’t see if the copilot, in the left-hand seat, had been hit or not.
A second later there was another loud gunshot, followed immediately by a huge bang as the rear end of the quad bike next to Delta disintegrated into splinters of metal and plastic. A loud moan came over the intercom.
Delta lurched backward from the quad and fell on his side, motionless.
“Delta, are you okay?” Arnside shouted immediately. “What the hell was that? Delta? Do you read me? Delta?”
But there was no response.
Another massive bang followed, and the front windshield of the Eurocopter exploded, as did the window on Johnson’s left. He instinctively ducked for cover behind the seat in front of him and glanced at Arnside, who had also ducked. There was a loud crackle from the intercom, but nobody spoke.
After a couple of seconds Johnson raised his head. The right-hand side of the Eurocopter’s bubble-like windshield now had a large hole, surrounded by a white area and a dense spiderweb of cracks emanating at all angles across the entire width of the laminated glass
A similar hole had been bored through the cabin window to Johnson’s left.
Suddenly, through the damaged windshield, beyond the motionless figure of Delta and the destroyed quad bike next to him, Johnson caught sight of a figure rising and then running full tilt through the heather, like an apparition from a horror movie, with trails of greenery and bracken billowing behind from his back. A cap he was wearing had similar camouflage materials attached, and he was carrying a long rifle in his right hand, which also trailed green camouflage.
Duggan.
Johnson unclipped his safety harness and opened the cabin door next to him on the left side of the helicopter, out of sight of Duggan, who was running away on the right side of the aircraft back toward the workman and the other quad bike on the path.
Got to stop the bastard.
As Johnson was climbing out of the Eurocopter, there was another series of gunshots and a couple of bangs from the top of the aircraft, right above the cabin, followed by an excruciating metallic squealing and groaning sound. The rotor hub mechanism had been hit. Then came another similarly loud bang from the rear of the helicopter, toward the tail. It was unclear whether it had been Duggan or the path repairman who had fired the shots.
Johnson jumped down to the ground and rolled sideways away from the helicopter toward the still figure of Delta. After a few yards he began to crawl as fast as he could until he reached Delta. The police officer was breathing, although he was unconscious, presumably as a result of being hit by some fragment on the side of the face, where a large gash was bleeding heavily.
Johnson grabbed Delta’s HK G36C that was lying next to him and checked the selector. It was turned to E, the semiautomatic setting. That would do.
Then he ran back toward the Eurocopter, whose main rotor blades were now drooping on one side at an angle; the central hub that was mounted on top of the cabin was visibly shattered where the rounds had smashed into it. The smaller tail rotor was also smashed in the center where another round had cannoned into it. The helicopter was out of action.
Crouching as low as he could while continuing to run, Johnson made his way to the rear of the chopper.
As he did so he heard the raucous sound of a quad bike engine firing up. As soon as he had a clear sight around the back of the Eurocopter, he could see the quad bike with two men on it accelerating rapidly along the gravel path away from him in the direction of the parking lot.
Another few seconds and Duggan and his colleague would be out of sight on their way back to the parking lot and their getaway van.
Johnson dropped to one knee, pulled the compact, spare frame of the Heckler & Koch up to eye level, squinted through the sight, and took aim at the lower rear end of the fast-moving quad bike.
He slowly pulled the trigger, squeezing off a burst of rounds that all missed and realized he needed to adjust his aim fractionally. This time there was no mistake.
The quad bike suddenly veered off the path to the left, down the slope, then somersaulted, throwing its occupants into the heather, and came to rest upside down against a large rock.
The two men who had been thrown off the quad bike were lying motionless near the machine.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Belfast
“Think you got the bastard,” Arnside said as he dropped to the ground from the stricken Eurocopter’s cabin door. He glanced at the body of Zebra, lying ten yards away, and set off immediately at a jog toward the spot where the quad bike had veered off the path.
Johnson, still carrying the Heckler & Koch, stood still for a second. Killing Duggan was the last thing he wanted. He set off after the assistant chief constable, who pulled a pistol from the holster at his hip as he ran.
He nearly twisted an ankle when his foot slipped sideways as he ran across the rough heather, but he recovered and made it to the gravel path just a few seconds after Arnside, who was moving at a speed consistent with his obvious fitness.
With a hundred yards to go, Johnson felt acutely aware that they were both sitting ducks if Duggan was still able to use his Barrett.
But as they drew nearer, he could see the prone figures of the two men, lying a few yards away from each other on the ground. Duggan, in his ghillie suit, was closest to them, about ten yards off the path, and the other man, in the yellow Belfast Landscaping jacket, was slightly farther away.
Johnson kept his eyes glued to them, watching for any sign of movement as he ran. As they drew nearer, Johnson saw Duggan fling an arm into the air, and he almost pulled the trigger of the H&K. But he held off as the arm sagged back down again.
From behind him he heard the clatter of another helicopter approaching.
Johnson sighed in relief when he saw the long outline of the Barrett M82 lying on the ground several yards away from Duggan. Then he spotted another rifle, an AK-47, just off the path ahead of them, which the other man presumably had used to shoot Zebra and the pilot.
Duggan was writhing on the ground, facing away from them. He was clearly not a threat. The other man wasn’t moving.
As Johnson and Arnside approached, Duggan rolled over to face them. Despite the ghillie suit and a swathe of camouflage paint on his face, Johnson could see he had a large cut above his right eye that was gushing blood.
“You can just feck off,” Duggan said, staring at them, the whites of his eyes standing in sharp contrast to the dark paint and blood that surrounded them. “Bloody hell. Bloody police. Go on, feck off.”
That was when Johnson noticed a distinct smell of petrol coming from the quad bike, which was wedged upside down at a forty-five-degree angle against a three-foot-high rock a few yards away.
Fuel was dripping from the back of the machine, in which a few bullet holes were visible. One tire had a large ragged gash in it, which had presumably caused the crash. Johnson reflected momentarily that maybe he hadn’t lost all of his old shooting skills. But then he stiffened as he realized the risk from the leaking fuel.
Arnside removed one of two sets of handcuffs that were clipped to the black duty belt around his waist, bent over Duggan, and expertly secured both hands behind his back.
Then he walked to the other man and did likewise.
Duggan looked up at Johnson. “You feckin’ asshole,” he said. “You’ve just let another killer cop off the hook, you realize that?”
He must have missed, then.
“No, you’re wrong,” Johnson said. “If you’re talking about Campbell, he’s not off the hook. Far from it.”
Arnside turned around. “What are you talking about? What’s that about Campbell?”
“I
’ll explain in a minute,” Johnson said.
Behind them, the thudding and clattering of the incoming helicopter engine got rapidly louder. Johnson turned to see the machine, identical to the one Johnson and Campbell had been in, descending onto a flat area around the path, roughly fifty yards away. The heather and grasses were being flattened and blown in its downdraft. Another helicopter was following it, and he heard the wailing of sirens in the distance.
As soon as the chopper landed, one of the cabin doors opened, and three armed policemen dressed in black jumped out and ran to where they were standing.
“What’s the update?” Arnside said tersely.
“One American Secret Service officer dead down there, sir. He’s a member of the president’s security detail,” one of the men said.
Johnson’s stomach flipped over. Another man dead in the course of doing his job.
“The president? The PM?” Arnside asked.
“Both secured but shaken.”
Johnson stepped forward. “And what about your chief constable?” he asked.
“A round just missed him by a hair’s breadth, I’m told.”
Johnson breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced down at Duggan, who lay staring up at them, blood still pouring from the cut over his eye.
Arnside’s police radio burst into life.
“Police Four Five, this is Hotel Victor, do you read me? Over.”
Arnside took the radio off his belt and pressed a button. “This is Police Four Five. We have two Tangos secured on top of Black Mountain. Both are injured but not critically. We are going to fly them back to base in Police Four Six, which has just landed here. They will then need medical assistance before we deal with them. Our pilot has been killed, Zebra is dead, Delta is injured, as is the copilot, I think. We need urgent medical help for them, too. Over.”
“This is Hotel Victor. Roger that Four Five. Will send in a chopper urgently. Over.”
Arnside replaced the radio on his belt and turned to one of the armed officers. “Okay, Pete, can you get these two in the chopper? We’ll take them back to base.”
He looked down at Duggan. “I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of a United States Secret Service officer, and there may be other charges to follow. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
Duggan gazed up at him from beneath lowered black eyebrows but said nothing.
“Do you understand?” Arnside repeated.
“What I understand,” Duggan said, “is that your chief constable is a killer—he and his army death squad mates murdered my father in cold blood. He’s the one you should be arresting. Not me.”
He paused, then added in a tone that mimicked Arnside’s. “Do you understand?”
Arnside paused for a moment and glanced at Johnson, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
“This is the only way of getting any justice around here,” Duggan went on. “All you police and army feckers just look after your own, sweep it under the carpet, pretend it never happened.”
Johnson shook his head. “Actually, that’s where you might be wrong,” he said.
Two of the armed officers lifted Duggan to his feet, each supporting him under an armpit, and frog-marched him to the helicopter.
Johnson glanced at the Barrett rifle, which was still lying on the ground. He walked over and studied it.
Arnside followed and stood beside him. “So what’s all this about the chief constable?” he asked.
Johnson stared at him. “You mean you’ve really no idea?”
“No, I don’t.”
Johnson raised his eyebrows. “Okay, well, what he said all appears to be true,” he said. “Campbell was one of a group from 14th Company, the Det, who gunned down Alfie Duggan at a roadblock of some kind near Crossmaglen in 1984. Dessie’s shot the rest of the soldiers who were involved. Campbell’s the only one left.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yes, exactly.”
Arnside looked uncertain. “Is it provable?”
“My understanding is that there was a file made after the Alfie Duggan shooting that named the members of the unit that were present,” Johnson said. “The file disappeared from Carrickfergus during some mysterious burglary more than twenty years ago, and—”
“Yes, I know about that burglary,” interrupted Arnside. “I was working there at the time, as were Campbell and . . .” His voice trailed off.
“As well as Campbell? Campbell was working at Carrickfergus when the burglary took place?”
Arnside’s eyes took on a glazed look. “Yes. And not just Campbell. He was friends with Eric Simonson, who was also there.”
“They were both working at the facility?” Johnson asked.
“Yes, it wouldn’t have been all that long after they moved from the army to the police—a few years, maybe, I don’t know. They were obviously quite junior guys in the RUC at the time.”
This is it, Johnson thought. I’ve nailed them.
He fought to remain composed. “Okay, well, did you know that copies of those files had been made before that burglary by the team investigating various shoot-to-kill incidents involving the army in Northern Ireland and had been taken to Nottinghamshire police headquarters as a backup?”
“No.”
“And because the investigation was shelved, people seemed to forget about the backup copies, which have sat in a locked basement room in Nottingham ever since.”
Arnside put both hands on his hips and scrutinized Johnson. “You’re joking?”
“No, I’m not. I found out about it from a source at MI5 who just happened to have worked at Carrickfergus back in those days and knew the person responsible for arranging the backup copies.”
Arnside pursed his lips as the implications of what he was hearing sank in. “So you’re telling me I might need to go and make arrangements to have my boss arrested?” he said, his voice slowing to a crawl.
Johnson nodded.
“You do realize that could amount to career suicide,” Arnside said. “I can’t do that without it being absolutely bloody watertight.”
“I think in reality, it’s likely to be taken out of your hands,” Johnson said. He guessed it would be elevated up to government level.
“Hmm, possibly. However, one thing you might not be aware of is that as part of my assistant chief constable’s role, I have responsibility for the financing and resources of the Historic Enquiries Team, and I take responsibility for any case referred by that team to the PSNI for further investigation and possible prosecution.”
Johnson put his hands on his hips. Now it was his turn to feel surprised. “So you’re telling me it’s your job to sort these cases out?”
“Basically, yes.”
Both men turned around as, behind them, the helicopter’s engines rose sharply in pitch. The pilot increased his revs further, and a few seconds later, the machine was airborne and heading toward Belfast.
Johnson turned back to the assistant chief constable. “I think you’ll find the case is watertight,” Johnson said. “I don’t know about career suicide. Actually, you might find yourself with a promotion sooner than you think.”
Epilogue
Monday, February 4, 2013
Belfast
Johnson glanced at his watch: ten minutes to go before the press conference was due to start, and the last time he had looked, the school hall had been already full of journalists, TV cameras, radio mikes, and bustling police public relations officers trying to make order out of chaos.
Initially he had been astounded that the Police Service of Northern Ireland had decided to return to Whitefield Integrated Primary School, the scene of the planned killing of Campbell and the place where one of Barack Obama’s security detail had met his demise just a week earlier.
But the more Johnson thought about it, the more it made sen
se. The location symbolized not just defiance toward terrorism but determination to build peace between Protestants and Catholics across the sectarian divide.
Arnside explained to Johnson that when it was established, the intention had been for the new school to accommodate an even balance of children from both arms of the Christian faith. And so far it was doing its bit to ensure they grew up together knowing integration as a normal part of their daily lives, not plotting how to kill each other.
He wanted to use the school at the press conference as an example, a vision, of how he saw Northern Ireland society evolving in the wider sense.
Fiona had wanted to fly to Belfast for the press conference to tie up the loose ends from her end of the investigation, given that police had arrested McKinney in Boston the day after the Black Mountain shootout. But to her annoyance, her editor had instead delegated the job to Inside Track’s London and Dublin correspondents who had been in Belfast for the G8. However, Fiona had led the way on coverage of the drama and had a major exclusive story, followed up globally, on the cigarette and arms smuggling that had been going on.
Johnson turned to Arnside, who stood in the school classroom just off the main hall, sipping a cup of tea and reading through the scripted statement he had prepared for the TV cameras.
The statement, which surprisingly had not been leaked to the media, was a lengthy one.
It reiterated in precise terms the catalog of murder charges laid at the door of Dessie Duggan, following the killings over recent months of Eric Simonson, Gary Joyce, Will Doyle, Michael Donovan, Brendan O’Neill, Martin Dennehy, Danny McCormick, and the still unnamed US Secret Service officer. He was also to be charged with the attempted murder of Campbell and of procuring the murder of his own stepdaughter, Moira McKittrick.
Kieran O’Driscoll was to be charged with the murders of Zebra and the pilot of the Eurocopter, conspiring to murder Campbell, and aiding and abetting in the murder of the US Secret Service officer.
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