by Finn Óg
“Long story, fella. But once I knew to look for you, you wasn’t that hard to find.”
“So how did you find me?”
“Every school has a list of children in it.”
“You looked for Isla?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
The opso drained his class and cocked it. Sam did the dutiful thing and wet it.
“To find you.”
Sam closed his eyes with impatience. “How did you know to look for Isla?”
The opso closed his eyes and recounted from memory: “Ireland. Isla. Child. Seven years. Unaccompanied. Conscious. Had been in the care of mother of a friend. On holiday. Parents uncontactable.”
Sam looked hard at the man opposite, trying to contain his anger.
The opso saw his mistake and put up a hand in mitigation. “That’s what the hospital file said, mate. That’s all it said.”
Sam knew staff like the opso were trained to recall what they had seen. It was all part of the job.
“And that brought you here? You came to – what, sympathise?”
“No. Well, yeah. What happened was a fucking disgrace, mate, but, I’m here to help, really.”
“So you said. Help what?”
“You see, I recognised you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Yeah, but I do, Sam. You know that. It’s what we do. And I saw you.”
Sam’s breath was shortening as he waited for a line that didn’t come.
The two men hunted each other’s eyes; one making a bad effort to persuade of good intent, the other debating whether to add to his body count for the week.
Eventually the opso tried again. “Look, Sam, I’ve been around the block, as you know. I’m tired of all the messin’ and the games they play. You-know-who, they’re still at it – pulling operations and stopping jobs with no explanation. Letting stuff through. It’s wrong. It’s just wrong. And when I saw you, I thought – well, at least someone’s got the balls to do the right thing.”
Sam looked at the opso and wanted to believe him but couldn’t take the chance.
“Isla! Get into bed, darlin. I’ll be in in a while. You can have pizza in bed and your iPad tonight.”
“Ok, thank you, Daddy!” she called back, happy at the treat.
Sam turned to the opso. “You’re hooked up?”
“No, mate, no. Honestly.”
The opso lifted his shirt.
“Come on. Rips now aren’t what they were. There’s a million ways you could be rigged. You’re a bloody specialist, for fuck’s sake.”
“Look, mate,” the opso stood, “take it all.”
Before Sam could object the opso had dropped his jeans, kicked off his shoes and sat back down in his shorts before removing his shirt and leaving the bundle on Sam’s side of the table. Sam stooped to pick up the jeans and shoes and with the shirt took it above deck, leaving it under the spray hood. He retrieved a boiler suit from the cockpit locker and handed it to the opso.
“I’ll get you a fleece.”
“No need, mate, this rum is burning me from the insides.” He smiled widely, attempting to find levity in the situation – which was just about balanced but could tilt without return at the smallest puff.
“I think you need to do the talking for a while,” Sam said.
“Ok, fella,” the opso said, falling into his old accent – content that he would be understood. “Well, I run the bloody show now, as I mentioned before. It’s not as big a team as it was during the war, like, but the tech is better, so there’s more covert cameras and the recording kit is amazin’. And we’ve got loads of other toys that means we don’t have to deploy ops.”
Sam splashed the glasses again, confident in his ability to sustain the assault on his sensibilities better than the man he was drinking with. “Carry on.”
“So, anyways, we were watchin’ some suspects for the police, like. You know, the people in the frame for the bombin’. And one of them ends up dead. Weird, like.”
Sam’s heart began to pound as his eyes bored into the opso.
“She and her old man were killed while we had a car right outside the house. So, like, whoever did it, knew what they were about. We still don’t know how the killer got in or out or how they left the town. It’s a proper mystery.”
It was the opso’s turn to stare at Sam. There was not so much as a flinch.
“Then we have this other mark, miles away. Out-of-area technically, but for whatever reason the job of tracking him fell to us. And lo and bloody behold, he ends up dead an’ all.”
Sam stayed silent, his face blank.
The heavy glass rotated in the paw of the opso as he peered out uncertainly from under his brow. “I saw you.”
Sam’s silence lasted a full minute and compelled the opso on.
“In Craigavon – you walked past him, the mark. Man known as Grim.”
Sam saw no point in saying anything. There was no immediate benefit to a denial, and as interrogations went this was hardly the worst he’d endured.
“Then, few days later, like, we’re tracking this Grim guy as he signs on for his bail in Belfast. We follow him from his solicitor’s office to the police station and in he goes – but he doesn’t come out. In fact, the only person who comes out is a lad with a limp and a tool belt and a drill – looks the part. We can’t see his face but we can track him through the town, into the shopping centre and away. And we can place him over the border in a little white van and then we lose him altogether.”
“Careless,” said Sam, his first utterance in ages.
“Or not,” the opso held up his finger, “or not, my friend.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, it’s up to me, isn’t it – how far we track a vehicle in another jurisdiction. Least it was that night. We can stick by the rules and close down the surveillance in another sovereign country, like Ireland – or we can quietly watch whatever we like, can’t we? We can track a van like that with a satellite or other kit. Whatever we like, really.”
“So you’re saying you stopped watching this van?”
“That’s right, mate.” The opso was getting a little cockier.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I recognised him – Bob the builder.”
“Who was it?”
“Come on, fella, this is getting silly now. I’m here to help.”
“You want to help me because I apparently walked past a man in Craigavon who was later killed in Belfast?”
“A man who was in the frame for planting the bomb that injured your daughter and killed her little mate.”
Sam stared again, hunting for any betrayal in the opso. Were they trying to get him through the back entrance?
“Let me get this straight. You saw me in Craigavon, walking past some bomber. Then you saw a workman leaving a police station in which the bomber went into but didn’t come out. And as a result of that you think you need to help me?”
“The bomber was killed in the police station, Sam. You’ll have heard that on the news.”
Sam shrugged. He had no intention of offering anything.
“See, I reckon it’s about time somebody just snuffed these bastards out. We sit every day and we watch them and we follow them, and we stop them doing what they’re trying to do – but sometimes we don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Stop them. Sometimes we’re told to just watch.”
Sam’s interest piqued as he realised what he was being told.
“You were watching the bomb vehicle?”
The opso’s hands went up in defence, realising what he’d implied. “Now, fella, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything about the bomb vehicle.”
“Didn’t need to. You lot had eyes on,” Sam said with conviction.
“Right, you need to get that out y’er head, mate. That’s not what I said.”
“You were watching that fucking car.” Sam leaned in, his voice
hard but contained – barely. “And you knew there was a bomb in it.”
The opso sat back, worried but resigned to the fact that he’d rumbled himself. “If we get into this, will you believe me that I’m here to help?”
“We’re getting into this whatever you’re here for.”
The opso closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “We had the car,” he conceded.
Sam looked at him, wondering whether his old colleague was here out of guilt or with the intention of closing Sam down. “Keep going, Rob. You’re in it now.”
“This can’t go anywhere – this is incendiary, Sam. This is beyond career wrecking – this is shutdown stuff. If anyone finds out – they’ll find a way to finish us both.”
Sam just nodded.
“I don’t know what the target was but it wasn’t Ballycastle.”
“Who was running this? Not the cops?”
“No, no,” the opso said. “It was our friends.”
“Box?”
“Yeah. They’ve a bright spark in our team – young lass. She’s smart as a fox, but a long way off experienced. She was told to watch the vehicle, then some kid comes and spends the night in it after a row with a known head – the woman who was giving him lodgings – the one who was killed. But I think you know more about her than I do.”
“Wrong,” said Sam, and he meant it. “Keep going.”
“So this kid, a known associate of Kevin McGleenon, Grim, also now dead, manages to detonate the bomb prematurely, we think.”
“You knew there was a bomb in a car and you let it sit there. For how long?”
“Days, mate. Days we watched it.”
“Why didn’t you send in the alley cats?”
“It wasn’t an ATO call, mate. This was an op run by the spooks – Box had control. I didn’t know why they were watching it. I still don’t know.”
“But they’ve told the police they had eyes on it?”
“Have they fuck. It’s closed doors, mate, wiped cards, records rewritten. We were not there, at least not that they can prove.”
Sam thought about the photographer and what he had said about his material being ditched at the scene by a big bloke.
“Army technical officers could have defused it. You could have saved my kid going through all of that. Have you any fucking idea how much trauma that child has had? She’s only seven years old,” Sam growled.
“I don’t know the details, Sam, but I know you were bereaved if that’s what you mean.”
“My wife was murdered, and Isla saw it.”
“Fuck me, mate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Honestly. What happened?”
“Not the point. Point is, you could have stopped Isla’s friend being killed. You could have stopped those others being murdered.”
“It wasn’t my operation, Sam. I was providing the team, the logistics, but I keep telling you – it was Box. MI5 trump us, you know that better than anyone. They’ll have had a good reason, like.”
“There is a good reason to allow kids to be blown up?”
“Well, they didn’t know that was gonna happen, fella, did they?” The opso found himself defending the very people he didn’t agree with.
“So you know who the bomb team was?” Sam seized on a thought.
“I know who Box think it was.”
“And you reckon this Grim person was one of them?”
“And Deirdre Rushe. The dead woman. But somehow you knew that too.”
Sam shook his head. “What has she to do with it all?”
“She provided the safe house for the kid in the car. I assume he was to transport the vehicle to the target.”
A veil of guilt lifted from Sam when he realised the old woman’s despatch hadn’t been entirely unjust.
The opso’s head tilted a little in curiosity. “Did you really not kill her?”
Still suspicious of listening devices, Sam opted to simply shake his head.
“But you were at the police station?”
Sam shook his head again.
The opso stared, then smiled, as if he understood the game and could play as well as anyone.
“You still seem happy to drop your trousers,” Sam said. “Once a para, always a para. Get what’s left of your kit off. We’re going for a swim.”
“So when will I hear from you?”
Libby looked at the clerk quizzically. “How do you mean?”
“Well, what’s next promotion-wise?”
“Promotion?”
“You said I’d be accelerated if I helped?”
Libby didn’t enjoy this part of the job, but she knew it came with the territory. “You want us to accelerate someone who has just been instrumental in perverting the course of justice?”
The clerk wasn’t stupid, nor was she soft. She’d grown up in the gnarly streets of west Belfast where a career in law was seen as a means of beating the Brits at their own game. “You made a deal. I did my bit.”
“And we are grateful.”
“You can’t just walk away from what you promised. I know what you’ve done.”
“But you don’t know who we are, do you?” Libby tilted her head in an almost sympathetic way.
The clerk feigned indignance and went through the motions she’d half expected to be forced to adopt. “But you made a promise. I could go to the chairman of the inquiry and—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Libby bared her teeth, “or your brother will be exposed.”
The clerk pretended to be stunned. “How do you—”
“Same way you do,” Libby said. “We found it on his computer.”
The clerk clutched her forehead, feigning anguish, and Libby went in for the kill.
“You see – you are ours now. That’s how this thing works. You do something illegal – very, very illegal, then you are compromised. We will require your assistance from time to time, and you will move up or down or stay in the same position according to what works best for us. Do you see?”
“You’re going to control me?” the clerk asked. “Manipulate me, my career?”
“Yes,” said Libby, then she turned on her heel with the last of the boxes and walked out the door.
The clerk walked slowly up the stairs and unstuck her phone from the globule of Blu-Tack she’d wedged onto the door frame. She checked the image and sound, compressed the conversation and emailed it to said brother. They’d have fun the next time they chose to hack into his hard drive.
Sam lowered the dinghy into the water and pushed it into the breeze. He stripped naked and slipped down off the scoop at the transom of the cutter, regulating his breathing as the cold water tried to rob him of air. He was well used to making his mind ignore the sensation – telling his body that it wasn’t feeling pain and discomfort, rather it was simply a sensation to be dampened, but airbornes weren’t so used to immersion – either that or the opso had long forgotten how to handle it. He opted for a macho drop straight in and surfaced like a thirsty hound.
Sam sidestroked to the dinghy and clambered in. It would have been warmer to stay in the water but he wanted the opso at a shivering disadvantage and craving comfort. His visitor followed panting and splashing and Sam hauled him out – glancing around in the dark to make sure there was nobody around, and that he was still well within sight of the boat on which his daughter slept.
“This is a bit extreme, mate,” the opso managed, his glory shrivelled and cupped as he lay against the air tank. “Grown men, in the nuds, skinny-dipping. It’s nearly winter!”
“Who else knows?” Sam shot back.
“No one, honestly. Just me.”
“How do you know?”
“I recognised ye. We practically lived together for months, mate. I know ye. Then it was, like, confirmed when y’er kid was in the mess of the bomb, ye know. It made sense.”
“Who was on the bomb team?”
“The kid, the bloke called Grim, another fella they talk about as the manager. And then they’re all run by you-
know-who.”
“Who?”
“The boss – Sean Gillen.”
“He’s been around for a long time,” Sam said, recalling the name. “He’s still a player – even after all that stir?”
“Prison just made him harder.”
“Still. That lot just sounds like the delivery team.”
“How d’ye mean?”
“You were in Iraq – you know the score. Same in Afghan. Take out the delivery team – they’re always replaced, but you need to take out the engineer.”
“Y’er right, mate. I agree. But that’s more difficult.”
“Why?”
“Cos we don’t know who that was. Look, mate, I’m fucking freezing. Can we not go back? You get the point, don’t ye, that I’m not fucking wired for sound here?” The opso opened his hands exposing his tackle, his face contorted and rattling with the cold.
“Why don’t you know who made the device? If you were following the bomb vehicle, you know where it came from.”
“Yeah, we do, but it was over the border. It came out of a shed in Donegal.”
“Well, then, who owns the shed?”
“Dunno.”
“But you have the address?”
“I s’pose we do.”
“So if you want to help, that would be helpful.”
“Ok.”
The opso had been ill-prepared for his late-night dip and in his discomfort would have agreed to just about anything. Sam was determined that if his old colleague had been sent to nail him, not one spoken, whispered word could be recorded while they drifted in their bollock-nakedness in a dinghy on a lough.
“And another thing.”
“Hurry up, fella, we’re gonna get fucking hypo here.”
“This manager. I want him. And his boss.”
“With pleasure, mate. ’Bout time they were shut down.”
“So I’ll take you back and get you warmed up, but I’ll be making another request at some stage. In fact, I’ll be insisting on it.”
Funds were running low. The manager was too proud to ask for further discount from the landlady – she’d done a month-long deal as it was. He’d prepared for a cross-border excursion – a timeout in case things went pear-shaped, but five thousand euros wasn’t much south of the border. He’d spent a grand on accommodation, half again on food. Then there was mobile phone credit for the burner he’d bought. He would have to stop using data – but then that was his only means of following his own case.