Their Own Game

by Duncan James

  ***

  When he got back to the office it was quite late, and Bill Clayton was surprised to find Nick Marsden still there.

  “I thought you’d be quaffing ale in the Mess by now, or sleeping it off, or something. What’s keeping you here at this late hour?” enquired Bill.

  “As a matter of fact,” replied Nick, “I’ve had an awful afternoon, thanks. How was yours?”

  “Nothing special,” replied Bill. “Lunch at Rules with the Cabinet Secretary after our meeting, a quick chat with the Head of Security at the Bank of England, a word over the phone with the Prime Minister, and a terrible journey back to Heathrow in a chauffeur driven Government limo. To crown it all, the only seat left on the flight back to Belfast was in Business class.”

  “Sounds a hard life over here,” responded Commander Marsden. “I think I’ll go back to Hereford.”

  “Don’t you dare - things are starting to happen, and will really take off on Monday, with luck,” said Clayton. “Perhaps even Friday. And you and I have got a lot to do before then.”

  He briefly told Marsden about the arrangement he had come to with Sir Robin Algar, how Vaughan had finally agreed to help with the financial operation, not least because of Clayton’s own spectacular coup in raiding a bank himself, and told him that the Prime Minister had agreed to talk to the President about the McFosters trip.

  “That’s why I had such a lousy afternoon,” said Marsden. “I’d only just got my head down, when some erk bustled into my room to say that the Prime Minister wanted a word on the blower. Being un-used to your way of life here, I naturally thought the man was nuts. It took him several minutes to convince me that he wasn’t, and when I eventually got to the phone, the PM’s winger didn’t want me after all, but your good self. Weaver then realised that when he spoke to you on the phone earlier, you were in London at the time, and it then took further minutes to convince him that I was your right hand man. In the end, the message was that the President was sure they could help, and watch this space. He said you’d know what that meant. When I said, ‘Oh, you mean McFosters’, he rang off.”

  “Typical,” said Clayton.

  “Him or me?” asked Marsden. “Why don’t we go and have that beer? I suppose you had a good lunch, and don’t want supper, but I'm starving.”

  “Ever been to Rules, in Maiden Lane?” asked Clayton, by way of reply.

  “Don’t tell me you had steak and kidney after your kippers? How could you?”

  “I’m still hungry, even now,” said Clayton. “It must be the travelling. But if you can keep awake, we ought to spend a few minutes here first, while it’s quiet. There’s quite a lot to tell you.”

  “I can’t wait,” replied Marsden. “And I’ll show you how the radio works, and brief you a bit on our capabilities. We should soon be ready for lift off, with luck. I’m quite looking forward to working with you, Major.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Clayton, “but a bit later.”

  “In that case, I’ll wait, and try to keep awake,” promised Nick Marsden.

  “Tomorrow,” said Clayton, “I must introduce you to the chaps in special branch. You’ll be working closely with them, and the anti-terrorist squad. First, though, let’s go through these.”

  He went to the safe for the originals of the dossiers he had taken to London earlier.

  “These are the villains we have to deal with,” he explained, “subject to London's approval, which is why I took a set of these over there today. We shall have a decision by Monday, when we can get started. But there are extra dockets in all of them which London didn't need - like this one, for instance.”

  Bill Clayton pulled out some pages from one of the files.

  “For some time now, we’ve been monitoring every move of all this lot,” he explained, waving at the pile of files. “We know everything there is to know that’s worth knowing.”

  “Such as,” asked Marsden.

  “Such as what time they get up in the morning, what time the postman calls, how much milk they have left, where they shop, what they eat, their favourite pubs and restaurants - everything, but especially their routines.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Nick Marsden.

  “It’s useful for two reasons,” continued the Major. “First of all, if they deviate from the normal, it alerts us to the fact that something is up, but secondly, if we want to - shall I say - upset their happy lives in some way, then we have a range of options available to us which we can tap into without them becoming suspicious.”

  “Like delivering the mail one day, instead of the postman doing it.”

  “Exactly. We even know where and when some of them plan to have their holidays. In fact in one particular case, that poses a problem, because he will be going to Greece for two weeks just when we want him to be around in Belfast.”

  “We shall have to get at him in Greece, then,” responded Commander Marsden. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “That would be handy,” said Clayton. “It’s why I asked if you could arrange operations abroad. I’m not keen to have too many bodies lying around, if we can avoid it. Bodies mean post mortems, and they can be embarrassing. I think, too, we might be able to arrange one or two tit-for-tat shootings if we can set the cat amongst the pigeons with a bit of Psy. Ops work.”

  Clayton returned the files to the safe, gave Marsden the combination number, and told him about the terrorist weapons in the armoury.

  “Browse through those files when you like,” he said. “But I want to discuss how we get at their arms dumps, if you don't mind.”

  “This is getting interesting.” said Marsden. “Much better than training at Hereford. How many dumps are there that we need to tackle?”

  “Taking both sides together, there are four small ones, but none the less important in spite of their size. But they will have to be raided and the contents removed, because they are in more or less built up areas and we must avoid collateral damage if at all possible. They will be a job for your chaps, I think, but again, if we are careful, we can make it look like the work of the other side. There is a good deal of weaponry hidden away in houses and flats and drinking clubs, and we can get the police to take care of that I think.”

  Major Bill Clayton paused.

  “There’s one, though,” he continued, “which I admit is really causing me sleepless nights.”

  He pulled out a map.

  “Down here, in the south.” He pointed to an area of Tipperary, near Cashel. “Near an IRA training area,” he continued. “It’s huge. Got everything in it you can imagine, from hand-held ground to air missiles to several tons of Semtex. It belongs to the Provisionals, and the De-Commissioning Body has never got near it - doesn’t even know it exists.”

  Clayton looked at Marsden, stood up and stretched.

  “I think the Irish government knows it’s there, not least because it’s in what used to be their major RSG during the cold war. Bloody miles deep and covered in more bloody miles of steel reinforced concrete.”

  Lt. Cdr Marsden frowned. “Not the sort of place you can wander into and empty with a removal van, I agree.” he said. “Why haven’t the Irish done anything about it, do you suppose?”

  “The need for a quiet life, probably.”

  “Blowing it up would soon take care of their quiet life for them, wouldn't it”, commented Nick Marsden. “And it must have weak points, like doors and ventilation shafts.”

  “It does,” agreed Clayton, “we’ve got some good satellite photos of it. But the weak points aren't weak enough for anything I can lay my hands on.”

  “If we can do it, will the bods in the south be very upset, do you think?”

  “They might just be asked if they mind,” replied Clayton, who told Marsden about his conversation with Sir Robin Algar earlier, including the regular inspections made by the IRA’s Quartermaster and his top aides, and the shipment due from Libya.

  “If that ever gets ashore, “said Clayton, “and I hop
e we can prevent that, but if it ever does, it will go into that bunker.”

  “If it’s still there,” commented Bill Marsden. “Any ideas?”

  “I think we shall have to ask the Americans to help with this one,” replied Bill. “I can’t think of any other way.”

  “I was thinking the same,” replied Nick. “They’ve got some pretty smart new ‘bunker-busters’, which they used in the Gulf. If we could persuade them to let us have the use of one, that would do the trick nicely. Multiple warheads would drill a hole straight through that lot before the sharp end went off.”

  “Air launched?” queried Clayton.

  “Not all of them,” said Marsden. “There are some new submarine launched cruise missiles fitted with those warheads. Much quieter and less obtrusive than noisy aircraft.”

  “Range?”

  “Two thousand miles, probably. Well out of sight.”

  “Would they do it, do you think?” asked Clayton.

  “If they’re really in on this Op. they will. We would probably have to get up close ourselves to light it with a laser as back up to their global positioning system, and to tell them when the target is occupied. A job for me, I think - what a splendid challenge!”

  “Do you mean personally,” asked Clayton.

  “Why not?” replied Marsden. “I haven’t been to a good firework display for simply ages. Now, what about that beer?”

  ***