by Jack Higgins
“And I’d love to meet her. Let’s make it at my residence hall since we’ve never met, that’s the easiest. I’ll give you my verdict.”
And she was a charmer, young and pretty, with black hair, reminding him totally of the dark Rosaleen of Irish legend. They called his room to tell him he had a visitor, but, as he was going downstairs, he knew it must be her the first time he saw her. She carried an umbrella, for it was raining outside, and wore a dark blue overcoat over a dress and ankle boots, a bag hanging by a strap from her left shoulder.
She smiled as he took her hand and reached up to kiss his cheek. “It’s so grand to meet you, Daniel.”
The only fly in the ointment were Green and Graham, who appeared from the common room at that moment. They looked astounded. “What’s this, Holley, where have you been hiding it?”
Obviously the worse for drink again, and he took her hand. “Come on, Rosaleen, we’ll go down the road and have a bite to eat.”
As they wandered out, behind them Green said, “Rosaleen, did you hear that? She’s a fucking Fenian.”
Daniel started to turn, and she pulled him around. “Never mind them, they’re just Protestant shites that can’t keep their gobs shut.”
She was calmly fierce, so he gave in, offered his arm, and they went down the road together. “Where would you like to go?”
“Oh, fish-and-chips in a café will do me fine, with a cup of tea, and you can tell me all about yourself.”
They spent two hours enjoying the simple meal and discovering each other. He was extolling the joys of Wharfedale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, she the beauty of the South Armagh countryside, and they vowed to exchange visits. It was ten o’clock when they left. The rain had stopped, but the streets were Sunday-night empty.
“If we walk back to my residence hall, I could call a taxi,” he said.
“Belfast taxis anytime of night cost a fortune, and that’s when you can get one. It’s not all that far to where I’m staying, fifteen minutes.” She laughed. “Well, maybe twenty.”
“Nothing at all,” he said, offered her his arm. They waited for a white van that had been parked across the street to start up and drive past them, and then they began to walk.
It began to rain again, and she got the umbrella up, laughing, and they hurried on, and there was only the odd car passing, and then nothing, as they turned into an empty street, its shops locked up, with their lights on, and bare of parked cars, a police regulation to discourage bombers. A white van—was it the same one?—eased out of a street behind them, passed, and then braked, the driver and his passenger wearing black hoods. The rear doors burst open, and two more men jumped out wearing hoods, one of them holding a revolver.
Rosaleen cried out, and Daniel closed in on the man holding the revolver, grabbing for it with one hand and, in the struggle, tearing off the hood, revealing Green. Daniel shoved him away, still trying to wrench the weapon from Green’s grasp, but another man had run around the van and grabbed him from behind.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Daniel shouted as he struggled, but Green, laughing madly, cried, “I’ll tell you what we’re doing, you fugger. We’re Red Hand Commandos, and we’re going to teach you and that Fenian bitch some manners.”
Behind him, Green struggled to force Rosaleen into the back of the van, and Daniel heard it and her cry of despair, and then Green reversed his grip on the gun and struck Daniel a heavy blow across the side of the head, and that was the end of it.
Daniel came to in subdued darkness, his head throbbing and matted with blood, and discovered that he was in the back of the van, street light filtering in from the windscreen. He tried to sit up and found that his wrists had been tied in front of him with some rough cord. Raising his hands, he could see that the knot was large and had obviously been done in a hurry. He had no difficulty in getting his teeth into it and was free in a couple of minutes.
Heavy rain drummed on the roof, and he slid to the rear and pushed open the doors with his feet, aware of the van’s tool kit to one side. He opened it and found a tire iron. He hefted it in his hand for a moment, then got out.
He was in a cobbled courtyard, a wide gate behind him standing open, a streetlight beyond showing old and towering warehouses. He turned and found a four-story building. A light over a large painted sign revealed “Bagley Ironworks, White Lane, Belfast.” The whole place looked old and decrepit, but there was a dim light inside, and he went up some stone steps and pushed the door open.
There were workbenches, a jumble of machinery, hoists hanging from above, rain drifting in, and a woman crying, then begging and pleading. He stood there frozen. Then she screamed, and somebody shouted, “Be quiet, you bitch,” and there was the sound of a heavy blow.
As he started upstairs, the tire iron ready in his hand, he heard a sudden, desperate cry. “No, please, not that.”
“Shut your gob” was followed by sustained blows, and a voice saying, “Stop it, you bugger, you’ll kill her.”
Daniel reached the top of the stairs and found the door half open. Green was sitting at a table, an open whiskey bottle beside him, fiddling with the Smith & Wesson. A door was open behind him, and suddenly it seemed very quiet.
A voice said, “Jesus, you fool, you have killed her.”
Green turned to the open door. Daniel lurched forward and smashed him across the skull with the tire iron, then picked up the revolver just as Graham appeared in the doorway and shot him in the heart at point-blank range. As Graham was hurled backwards, Daniel took two quick paces forward and shot the next man he saw in the back of the head as the man started to turn.
The fourth man was old and wizened and shaking in terror. “For pity’s sake, don’t, I never laid a finger on her.”
“Then why’s your belt undone and your fly open, you lying bastard?” Daniel stepped close and put a bullet between the old man’s eyes.
The sight of Rosaleen now was something that would stay with him always and change his life forever, make him a different man, for dead she was, beyond any doubt, and lying on what was presumably some janitor’s bed. He found an old rug to cover her broken and defiled body.
He went back into the other room and he heard a moan. Green was stirring, and, almost without thinking about it, Daniel shot him in the head. He picked up the open bottle of whiskey, raised it, swallowed some down, and emptied the rest of it over Green’s corpse.
“You Prod bastard, Green,” he said. “Well, I’m a Prod bastard, too.”
Looking around, he realized the place must have been an office of sorts in its day. There was a wall phone by the far door, and he went and tried it and, by some miracle, it still worked, so he did the obvious thing and called Liam.
Liam called back surprisingly quickly, for once. “Now then, Daniel, how are things going with you and Rosaleen?”
And Daniel told him.
He was sitting at the table, clutching the revolver, the blood oozing from the side of his skull, when Liam arrived almost an hour later, patted Daniel on the shoulder, and went straight into the janitor’s room. When he came out, the look on his face was terrible to see.
There were half a dozen hard-looking men with him and two paramedics in green. Liam kicked Green’s corpse, and said, “Get rid of this rubbish and his pals. Round the back in the river will do.” He eased the gun from Daniel’s grip. “I’ll have that now, son.”
“I couldn’t save her, Liam.”
“You did your best. I’d say four kills is a remarkable number for a beginner.”
“And you’re an expert, so you would know?”
“That’s right, cousin. I’ve been with the Provisional IRA since the beginning. Red Hand Commandos are Protestants closely linked to the UVF. We’ll make them pay.”
“Nobody can make them pay for what they did to her.”
“I know, son, I know.” Behind him, two men brought Rosaleen out in a black body bag, supervised by a paramedic.
“What
is this?” Daniel asked.
“We have an ambulance below. The police don’t stop ambulances at night. We’re going to take you to a convent down in the country, where the nuns are a nursing order and good friends of ours.”
The other paramedic came forward and examined his head. “That’s not good at all. We’ve got to do something about that and fast.” He called to a couple of men. “Just take him down.”
Which was really the end of it, because although Daniel remembered being on a stretcher in the ambulance across from the black bag, he couldn’t recall a single thing about the journey afterwards.
St. Mary’s Priory, it was called, and the Mother Superior, a Sister Bridget Blaney, was a qualified surgeon, for they were Little Sisters of Pity, a nursing order whose help was there for all who needed it, and, in troubled times, that was bound to include the IRA.
Coming to his senses, Daniel found himself coming out of an anesthetic in a recovery room. Sister Bridget herself, still wearing scrubs over her habit, was smiling gently, Liam anxious behind her.
“You’ll be fine, Daniel,” she said. “The faintest of cracks on the side of your forehead. Fifteen stitches will give you an interesting scar, but what you need is a solid week’s rest in bed. Liam has told me of the circumstances here.”
“Everything?” Daniel said weakly. “Rosaleen?”
“God rest that child’s soul, for I knew her well. She is in heaven now, and I shall pray for her, and so must you.”
He smiled weakly. “I’m not baptized in the faith, Sister, my father wouldn’t have it, but my mother is a good Catholic and a matron at a hospital in Leeds.”
“Well, I’m sure she mentions you in her daily prayers, and I will, too.”
“Even though I’m a Protestant?”
“Even that,” she said cheerfully. “But you must rest now, and Liam has to leave to take Rosaleen home to Crossmaglen and her family, so say your good-byes.”
She went out, and Liam said, “Now, do as she says and take it easy. I’ll be back.”
Daniel said, “Just tell me one thing. You and Provos . . .”
“What about it?”
“You’re not just another volunteer, you’re bigger fish than that?”
Liam took his right hand and held it tight. “After what you did for my beloved sister, I count you closer than any brother. No secrets between us ever, so, yes, I am.”
Daniel nodded weakly. “I understand Éamon de Valera’s father was Spanish, and it was his mother who was Irish. It’s the same for me, if you think of it, except my father was Yorkshire.”
Liam frowned slightly. “What are you saying?”
“That maybe you could use me. I know I’m still on morphine and things are a little fuzzy, but I don’t think there’s a place in my life for the old Daniel anymore. I killed four men a few hours ago, face-to-face and as close as you could get, and it didn’t bother me. God bless Rosaleen, and I hated them for what they did to her, but to be able to do what I did, Liam.” He shook his head. “There was a devil inside me, deep and hidden, but he’s found his way out.”
Liam’s face was grave. “Rest, son, that’s what you need. I’ll take your love to the family, and I can tell you now you have theirs for eternity.”
Rosaleen’s funeral was on Wednesday afternoon, three days after Liam left with her body, and the following morning, to Daniel’s astonishment, there was a knock on his door, it opened, and his mother entered, Liam behind her.
“My God, I can’t believe it,” Daniel said.
She kissed him, and pulled a chair forward. “Your aunt spoke to me the moment she received the news from Liam. There’s a direct flight to Belfast from Leeds Bradford Airport. I was able to be at the funeral. I know, Daniel, the whole dreadful story and what those swine did to my beloved niece.”
“And what I did to them?” Daniel said.
“Trouble, violence, the gun, is the history of Ireland, Daniel. I was born to it, and the history of the Coogan family is full of it. What you did had to be done, a terrible deed. How could I love you the less for it, but I agree with Liam. It’s best you go away for a while, leave the country, in case there’s even the slightest chance of this being held at your door.”
It was interesting that Liam had said it to her, but he let that go as she got up. “You’re away, then?”
“Yes, Liam has one of his men taking me to the airport now. I love you dearly. Keep in touch any way you can,” and she was away.
“The shock of my life, that,” Daniel said. “Now, what’s all this about me going away?”
Liam now took the chair. “What you were saying about joining us? Now that your head’s clear, do you still feel the same way?”
“More than ever.”
“I have a suggestion. We can’t manage Sandhurst for you, though I know you had an interest in going there, but we do have good relations with our Islamic friends. We’ve sent people with great success to Algiers, where we have an excellent contact. All this costs money, but we have plenty of that coming in from the States, and Qaddafi’s been more than friendly to us.”
“What happens when I get to Algiers?”
“You’ll be passed from hand to hand until you reach a training camp deep in the desert. By the time they’ve finished with you, you’ll be an expert in weaponry of every description, explosives, the mechanics of bomb making, hand-to-hand fighting, assassination.” He shrugged. “What else can I say? You’re academically gifted, you could get a job in the City of London anytime you wanted. Or you could do this.”
“That was then, this is now. My path has changed, Liam. I must follow it.”
“Your choice, Daniel. I’ve had one of my people in Belfast remove your things from your room, and we’ve dropped a beautifully presented letter with a scrawled signature to Professor Charles Wilkinson, saying you’re having to leave for urgent family reasons.”
“Well, that’s it, then.” Daniel smiled. “When do I go?”
“As soon as Sister Bridget says you’re fit.”
“Can I keep in touch with you?”
“No problem. I’m your control. You have my card, remember. It was a good thing you had your passport in your pocket that night. I’ll be back for you as soon as she agrees, and then it’s over the border, and we’ll see you off from Dublin.”
The person who emerged from the desert oasis of Shabwa at the age of twenty-three bore little resemblance to the Daniel Holley who had entered it. He was a thoroughly dangerous man in every way, as he reported as ordered to the man in Algiers who had received him in the first place, one Hamid Malik, a shrewd businessman whose line was general shipping in the Mediterranean. It was a front for darker matters, and he handled the needs of a number of organizations involved, as he liked to describe it, in the “death business.” The PIRA were clients, and their money was good, which was all that mattered, for he was never a man to make judgments.
Sitting opposite Daniel in the heat of his office in Algiers, with an electric fan spinning on the desk, he said, “Remarkable, Daniel. You went in a troubled boy, and the reports from the camp say you are now a man to be reckoned with.”
“So what comes next?”
“Thanks to the good offices of Colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi, the Kantara, with a substantial cargo of assorted weaponry, is waiting in the harbor now for you to board her. Her destination is the coast of County Down in Northern Ireland.” He pushed a large canvas bag across. “There are fifty thousand pounds in there, Qaddafi’s gift to your cause, and the arms are free. There’s also a letter from Liam Coogan for you.”
“Which you probably opened?”
“I am a careful man, Daniel, and you have much to prove. Allah protect you.”
The Kantara proved to be a rust bucket, with a crew of ten reasonably villainous Arab seamen who showed a certain amusement when he boarded. The captain was named Omar, and he smiled a lot.
“Ah, the moneyman.” He nodded at Daniel’s bag. “A little large for my saf
e, but we can squeeze it in.” They were standing at the bridge rail.
“That’s not necessary,” Daniel told him. “Presumably, there’s a key for the cabin door?”
“Certainly, you will find it on the inside.”
The crew, grouped below, seemed to find the whole thing funny, muttering amongst themselves and laughing. One of them, a Somali in a soiled white T-shirt and jeans, said, “A chicken for the plucking, this one. What will they send next?”
Daniel didn’t react. He understood exactly what the man had said and the implied threat. A legacy of his time at the training camp was reasonable Arabic, but, as his chief instructor had always said, it was sensible to keep quiet about it, prepared for trouble armed with information an enemy didn’t know you had.
On the first day at sea, lying on the bunk in his cabin with the bag in a locked cupboard underneath, he listened to the drunken voices of the crew, who were squatting under deck lights in the stern. It was obvious that, as far as they were concerned, he was never going to reach his destination. He reached under his pillow, took out a Browning pistol, pushed it into the waistband at the back of his linen slacks, and went out.
The ship’s bosun, Hussein, had the wheel, and Omar was in the stern, having a drink and laughing with the men. Daniel slid down the short ladder, hands on the rails, and they all were suddenly aware of him.
The Somali spoke before anyone else. “So here he is, the boy trying to do a man’s job.”
Daniel produced the Browning and shot him between the eyes, knocking him against the rail, the skull fragmenting. The shock was complete, and the crew cowered, not knowing what to expect. The Kantara itself started to veer to port, and Daniel swung around to find that Hussein had left the wheelhouse and was raising an AK-47 rifle. He shot him twice, and Hussein bounced against the front of the wheelhouse, the rifle flying from his hands. He fell across the bridge rail and tumbled to the deck.