by Jack Elgos
‘Now boys,’ said Liam, addressing the two men who lay staring from their prone positions. ‘I’d stay where you are if I were you - unless you fancy the same that is.’ They shook their heads and closed their eyes in unison. Liam turned and walked out of the barn, got in his car and drove away. No one tried to follow.
He arrived at Glasgow airport, abandoned the little car, retrieved his Jag from where he had left it and set off home. Turner would be proud of him, he thought. He had taken out only the target instructed and no one else had been hurt. He wasn’t concerned about witnesses. They would report a man with a heavy accent, a scar on his face and a bloody big gun. The scar was new since his days in the I.R.A. and he reasoned that, if anyone started putting two and two together, then they might come to the conclusion that it was the same scarred mystery man who had taken out Mad Dog. That, he thought, was no bad thing.
***
Christmas came and went and his training routine continued through the next spring. On a pleasant evening in April he sat down to watch the news and saw the horrific report of a bomb at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The death toll was huge with a first estimate of over fifty killed.
‘Shite,’ Liam said out loud. ‘What the Hell is going on with the world?’ Still, American problems were not his problems.
He had been in bed around half an hour when the phone rang and he was surprised to hear the familiar voice when he answered. ‘I’ll be round at 9am,’ Turner told him. ‘We need you.’
18
Back In The Game
The silver Mercedes arrived and Turner climbed out holding his briefcase, so this was obviously serious. Tea made, biscuits provided, pipe lit and they were ready in the drawing room. Liam could hardly contain himself. ‘Who is it, Mr. Turner? Who’s the target?’
‘It’s not exactly that straightforward my boy.’
‘Oh no, please tell me you’re joking. Not more intelligence. I need to stay in the game.’
‘Oh, the game’s afoot all right.’
‘What?’
‘You like Spain don’t you?’
‘Aye,’ Liam agreed, his mood brightening immediately. ‘So which of the boys have they got over there then?’
‘It’s not the I.R.A. connection this time Liam. It is far, far more complicated than that.’
‘What are you…? I’d better just be a dear boy and sit and listen, hadn’t I?’
‘That would be very helpful,’ Turner agreed. ‘Now, did you see the news last night?’
‘Aye. That embassy bombing?’
‘That’s correct. Now clearly this has upset the Americans very badly, but it also has us worried and there were long calls between various agencies last night. I haven’t slept since it happened.’
‘I didn’t think we talked to the Americans.’
‘Well, we do and we don’t. Anyway it’s a terrible state of affairs when embassies are bombed, you see, because they are supposed to be off limits.’
‘All bombs are wrong. I hate fuckin’ bombs,’ Liam broke in and then caught the look in Turner’s eye. ‘OK, I’ll watch my language and I’ll shut up and listen.’
‘I do wish you would, dear boy. Now this was a suicide bombing and that is what is scaring everyone the most. There have been a few over the last couple of years and it seems to be a growing problem. The Tamil Tigers have done it, this looks like the work of Hezbollah and we are also very concerned about the P.L.O.’
‘The P.L.O.?’
‘Mm, it’s terribly worrying. They moved their base to Tunisia recently and now it seems they might have gone over to Spain to train with E.T.A.’
‘Fuck me.’
‘Well exactly, Liam, exactly. For once I wish I could use your parlance. That is how very serious this is. Take a look at these photos.’ Turner removed an envelope from his briefcase and spread surveillance images on the desk. They were all a little unclear, obviously taken from great distance, but the terrain was immediately familiar.
‘That looks like Spain,’ Liam agreed.
‘It is.’
‘And those look like Arab-types.’
‘They are.’
‘So that’s the P.L.O?’
‘Maybe. It’s our best guess. There is a long history of arms trading between the I.R.A., E.T.A. and the P.L.O. so it makes sense that, if any group moved to Spain, they would be the ones. But we honestly don’t know. It could be a new group that we haven’t even heard of yet. The point is; what are they doing there? We have been monitoring for some time, but we don’t have clear intelligence yet. Our big fear now, after yesterday, is that one of our embassies might be a target or that a U.S. embassy within Europe could be at risk. The implications of that would be devastating on a scale I can’t even begin to describe. International relations could be ruined and the whole thing is simply quite unacceptable.’
‘Quite,’ Liam agreed. ‘So what’s my role in all of this?’
‘Take a look at these,’ said Turner providing more photographs. ‘Do you recognise any person here?’
The images of several men and women passed before him. Some were clear, some were blurred, all looked Spanish and all were unfamiliar. ‘Not a one,’ Liam said.
‘That’s a shame,’ Turner mumbled. ‘It could have been useful. How about this one?’ he suggested pulling the last picture from his envelope.
Liam stared at the photograph of an old woman with a weathered face and very few teeth. This one he knew. It was Rosa – his Rosa, a woman whose home he had shared. A woman who had looked after him like a mother. A woman he had come to love and admire. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Oh no. Oh God no. What are you saying here, Mr. Turner? Please tell me you’re not suggesting… Oh, for God’s sake no.’
‘I’m sorry, dear boy, but she is now an official target. The belief in some circles is that if important E.T.A. heads were removed then those Arab fellows, whoever they may be, might well consider Spain to be unsafe for them and disappear back to their more traditional grounds in Africa and the Middle East. This is the kind of thing the Americans have talked to us about. Now I don’t think it’s that simple and I’m not alone. That particular lady is not very high on our list of priorities, but I can’t speak for the Americans. They might already have operatives in Spain. Deniable, of course. That is the kind of thing they don’t talk to us about.’
‘Mr. Turner, I’m not sure I can get my head round all of this. I don’t really know what you’re telling me.’
‘We do not have a sanctioned operation in Spain. This has all happened so very quickly, you see. You did say you liked Spain, didn’t you my boy?’
‘Aye,’ said Liam, a small glimmer of light beginning to show at the end of this confusing tunnel.
‘Yes, I’ve heard that it’s a wonderful place to take a holiday,’ Turner continued. I would like to go there myself one day. I’m not so sure that I would fly there though. This bombing will have made airports such tedious places. They always heighten security at times like this. Ferries are a little bit slow, but they never seem to warrant the same attention as airports. Personally I have no idea why.’
‘No,’ Liam agreed. ‘And, you know, I do feel in need of a holiday. After all I have been so busy this year.’
‘Yes, Liam, I wouldn’t like to deny you that opportunity, but please do take care of yourself. The heat can be so treacherous in these foreign climes. Anyway my dear boy, thank you so much for the tea but I really must be going.’
Within minutes Liam was alone and concentrating. So he was finally back in the game and on another deniable mission. So deniable that it wasn’t even a sanctioned deniability. He could have his head blown off over there and it wouldn’t even cause a tiny bat of an official eyelid. That was not his immediate concern, though. If he had to go by ferry then he couldn’t get there quickly. There were only one or two crossings a week and that might not be in time. What the fuck should he do? He pressed his hands to his head in an effort to think, and then an idea hit him. He pulled op
en the desk drawer and searched frantically until he found the scrap of paper he was looking for. Got it. Now he had to make a call, but he couldn’t trust the house phone. He had a secure line any time he needed to call Turner, but who knew how secure it was at any other time. He raced from the house, jumped in the Jag and headed into town and a public phone box.
19
1983: Spain
Almost a week after Turner’s visit Liam finally drove off the Pride of Bilbao ferry and headed into the Spanish countryside. It was eighteen months since he had left this place with no chance to say goodbye. He didn’t know how his disappearance would have been interpreted nor how his reappearance would be viewed. Most worryingly he didn’t know if his message had made it through and he hadn’t a clue how it would have been received if it had. In fact there was nothing he could be sure of. As darkness fell and he finally approached a long dirt lane leading to a derelict-looking farmhouse, he did so with extreme caution. He pulled up a safe distance from the door, killed his lights and sat to gather his thoughts for a moment before checking his .38, climbing out of the Jag and walking to the house.
He waited behind an old tree and listened, straining his ears for any sound – a cough, a conversation, a footfall, anything that would give away the presence of hidden guards. There was nothing. He removed his shoes and silently sprinted the last few yards towards the house and stopped abruptly at the porch, listening again. Still nothing. Bending low he crept along the wall and round the corner where he saw the soft glow of light coming from the kitchen window. He risked a quick look and saw two men at the table. That was as it should be, but he still had no idea of the reception he could expect. Creeping back to the door he entered quietly and tiptoed down the hall unchallenged. His revolver at the ready he took a deep breath and then crashed the kitchen door open.
A man with one eye and another with half an ear reached for their weapons. ‘Leave them,’ Liam ordered in Spanish. ‘Don’t move.’
‘Butch. Is that you Butch?’ asked Vassi, his eye patch rising in surprise.
‘Yes. Is it safe?’
‘Safe? Of course it is safe.’
‘And you are the only ones here?’
‘Yes, just me and Hector. Butch, my brother, what are you doing with the gun?’
Liam relaxed a little, but still aimed his revolver. ‘I need to be sure.’
‘Well Mr. Butch, it is all very peculiar. I don’t quite know how to explain. Four evenings ago a man walks up to the house and knocks on the door. This is very unusual. We do not get visitors here unannounced. I have my gun and I open the door and stare at him then he starts to speak. It was a thing of great strangeness.’
‘M…M…M…M…?’ offered Hector and Liam finally lowered the gun. Good old Laa Laa. He’d made it.
‘So you got everyone out then?’
‘Oh yes, immediately. Well, not quite immediately. It took a very long time for the man to tell us your message,’ said Vassi and he began to smile. ‘It was very clever of you to send him. We would not usually listen to strangers, but he was the strangest of strangers and so we did listen.’
‘N…N…N…N…,’ Hector joined in again with a laugh.
Liam threw the gun on the table and spread his arms wide. ‘My brothers. I have missed you.’
Vassi and Hector rose from the table and the three men embraced warmly, kissing each other on the cheek until Vassi stood back. ‘Mr. Butch, why do you insult us? First you leave us and when you return you point that little handgun at us. For such strong fighting men to be threatened by anything less than a .44 Magnum – well, it’s just not right. You have not, as the American actor says, made my day.’
All tension now gone the men sat and Hector offered a drink. The questions and explanations came quickly from all sides. Vassi had guessed that someone had taken Butch and Liam explained he was now working for the British against the people who had killed his mother. The others were surprised but, as Vassi put it, ‘We don’t care who your paymasters are. We are Basque. We understand vengeance.’
Liam filled them in on what he knew from Turner and Hector explained how they had managed to move the whole camp within just a few hours once they received the warning. ‘If anyone is watching us, they will see nothing, just two men on tractors during the day and drinking whiskey at night. That is all we have done for the last few days waiting for you to arrive. It is very boring.’
‘We can leave tomorrow,’ Liam suggested. ‘Rosa is safe and that’s what really matters.’
‘Yes, I still cannot believe someone was sent to kill her,’ said Vassi.
‘Well, we don’t know for sure, but my boss thought it was a strong possibility.’
‘So he sent you to save her?’
‘Oh no. I am here completely unofficially. I have no support, no back up, nothing.’
‘You have us.’
‘Yes, Vassi, I have you.’
‘So what do you need us to do?’ asked Hector.
‘I really don’t know for sure. I’m here to have a look at some Arabs. Do you have any?’
‘Yes, they moved with the rest of the camp, but we have them. They arrived maybe two or three months ago.’
‘Are they P.L.O.?’
‘We think maybe there is a connection, yes. Maybe what they call a splinter group, but they are strange men. Stranger even than your stuttering friend. They don’t talk to anyone. Rosa was ordered to take them into camp, but she doesn’t like them. She spits at them behind their backs and says they smell bad.’
Liam smiled at Vassi’s explanation, remembering a day when Rosa had ordered him stripped naked and forced him to bathe in the freezing sea and a sheep dip before she would let him enter her home. ‘So they don’t come to the house, then?’ he guessed.
‘No, they spend all day in the field. We have watched them but it is difficult to tell what they are doing. They pray a lot and they do push-ups and they huddle in a circle. They carry big boxes and I think they have explosives, but they do not seem to be fighting men.’
‘They are not men, they are boys,’ Hector butted in.
‘It is true,’ Vassi agreed. ‘There is one older man, but the rest seem very young. That is all we know. They leave us alone and we leave them alone. These are the men you are interested in?’
‘Yes, and if we could get rid of them then I think Rosa would be safe.’
‘I think there are more Arabs in the country,’ said Hector. ‘Not just our group.’
‘I don’t care about the others. You just need to get rid of yours and, if I can find out a bit of what they have been doing, then all the better. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow.’
The morning sun burst through his window and beamed directly into Liam’s eyes. ‘Sweet Jesus, just a little more sleep,’ he whispered, but the sun was relentless and he was forced from his bed. He arrived downstairs to the inviting aroma of bacon cooking and, after breakfast, the three men headed out. The Jaguar was secured in a barn, as Vassi suggested they maybe shouldn’t attract attention with an English car, and then they piled into an old Ford estate and set off. Several hours later they were climbing the foothills of the Pyrenees and Liam was struck by the beauty of the snow-capped mountains. Apparently there was a whole country up there that he had never even heard of. Andorra, Hector had informed him.
‘Is that where we’re going?’
‘No, not quite.’
On the outskirts of a small town called La Seu d’Urgell, Vassi turned off the main road and onto a dirt track. A mile or so later they left the Ford and transferred to a waiting Land Rover before continuing up deteriorating winding paths until there was no track left and they were bumping along off-road and ever upwards.
‘No-man’s land,’ Hector announced as they finally came over the brow of a hill and saw a large, sprawling farmhouse just below the snowline. Within a few minutes the bone-shaking journey came to an end and a wizened face greeted them at the door. Liam ran to hug her.
‘Meeste
r Bootch,’ said Rosa through her gummy smile. ‘Welcome home.’
Throughout the afternoon and evening several other familiar faces put in an appearance. Rosa’s three sons, José, Valentino and Roberto, and then Sixtro, the finest driver Liam had ever witnessed, all joined them for dinner. Everyone was happy to see him back and no one had a problem with what he had been doing for the last eighteen months. All were concerned at the trouble that the Arabs might have brought down on them.
‘Do your people really believe that killing an old lady like me would have any effect on them?’ Rosa asked. ‘That is crazy.’
‘I think it’s more the Americans really, but I don’t know. Honestly, Rosa, I think if they had truly been after you, then you would be dead by now,’ Liam told her. ‘I warned you as quickly as I could, but if anyone was watching they must have seen you leave the old camp.’
‘I agree,’ said Vassi, ‘but I don’t believe anyone is watching us here. No one could approach this place without us seeing them.’
‘Mm, you’re probably right, but I would be a lot happier if you could get rid of your Arabs.’
‘They will be gone in two days,’ Rosa informed him.
‘What?’ This was clearly news to everyone else at the table.
‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘When your warning came I contacted my superiors. They radioed me back this morning and said that something had been brought forward, whatever that means, and they will be leaving. Also now we think they might be Syrians.’
‘Syrians? Might be?’
‘Nobody seems to know anything for sure and that concerns me greatly.’
Liam was concerned too. Something was definitely going to happen and his warning might have expedited it. Shit. Two days. That didn’t give him much time.
20
Oh, Nobody Likes Them You Know
Liam was in the Land Rover with Vassi and the others at dawn the following morning and they bumped, jarred and shook their way to the training ground. Liam gazed out over a large, flat, grassy area surrounded by thick pine trees and a ring of high mountain peaks. A single wooden building stood to one side, a neat row of tents at the other. As they parked up a string of men began emerging from the long hut and quickly formed two rows. Liam smiled at some familiar faces from the old camp back in Santoña.