by Geoff Wolak
‘So, we were right about that farm,’ the Major noted. ‘Good work. Now we plan the next stage.’
‘Should we not have stayed all night?’ Rizzo asked.
The Major faced him. ‘When you get the good intel you make a plan, not hang around. Wilco was right to get us the intel first, and now we make a plan. First – observation, then a plan, then we strike. Get some food and rest.’
Smurf and the lads were surprised that we were back, so I simply said that the job had been cancelled, the intel screwed up, and half an hour later I was sat with the nice lady captain, a cup of tea in hand.
‘Any chance of some light relief, Ma’am?’ I asked her.
She squinted at me before returning to her file.
The name on the envelope matched the RUC records, as did the vehicle registration, and the tangled web of intel started to coalesce into useful links between potential gunmen. That next afternoon I met with the Major and Captain Harris, but was stunned to see Bob Staines of SIS walk in.
‘Well look what the cat dragged in,’ I said as I stood. We shook.
‘This where the real work gets done?’ he asked as he sat.
‘You’ve met, so no need for introductions,’ the Major said. ‘OK, our good friends at Mi6, or even SIS if you want to be accurate, have a man or two south of the border, and we’ve now got that man or two focused on the farm and its comings and goings. ’
I said, ‘I thought I would have a look at the mugshots later, see if I recognise anyone I saw at the farm.’
‘Good,’ the Major acknowledged. ‘So, what we know ... is that they’re up to no good, but what we’d like is to put some polish on that idea first. So -’ He faced me. ‘- we have a camera that looks like a rifle, trigger an all, and it will work in low light, it will even work if you try and photograph someone through their kitchen window at night. You’ll get a brief later on how to use it, Wilco, and tonight you go back to get pictures, same team.’
I nodded.
Later on an Intel sergeant showed me the camera, and its settings for day, for night, and for variations in between, as well as how to wind it on. I was warned not to open it, to let them do that, and I had to sign for it. It had a sling, so it could be worn around my chest. I did, however, wrap green sackcloth around it to make it camouflaged, and to stop it tapping against my webbing.
We had been scheduled to leave at 11pm, but I altered that to 7pm - just after it got dark, since I’d have more time to get into position. The kit was the same, and the van picked us up on time, the same brief journey down to the drop off, and we were soon stuffing branches and mud into the sacking before covering our boots, gloves and masks put on.
Ready, I led Rizzo and Swifty along the same route, past the slurry pit, and south across the border. Halting to listen, I got a whiff of cigarette smoke, and knelt down. ‘We got company,’ I whispered. I could also hear something.
‘Backup,’ I finally said, and we rushed around the slurry pit and west, right to the edge of the farm, a wide stream negotiated. From that stream, and following that stream on the west side, I slowly led the guys south, a simple wire fence delineating the border.
Lifting up one wire and pushing down on another with my foot, Rizzo eased through, followed by Swifty, and they held it for me. Finding a huge square field, no signs of any cows in residence, I opted to go west and around, the long way, and we did so at a slow pace, half an hour used up before I got sight of the barn and the farmhouse. Clambering up the same tree, I used my telescopic sight to have a look as it started to rain.
Through the sights I could see men rushing around and getting ready, all armed, and there had to be ten of them, many moving into the hedgerows and hiding themselves. I climbed down.
Taking in the dark outlines of Rizzo and Swifty, I began, ‘We’ve been sold out.’
‘How’d you mean?’ Swifty asked.
‘Mi6 have a man over there keeping an eye on the farm, supposedly, and Mi6 were at Bessbrook today, and now there are a dozen heavily armed men taking up position and waiting for someone.’
‘Us?’ Rizzo queried. ‘How’d they know?’
‘Like I said, we’ve been sold out.’
‘Or maybe that guy was caught,’ Swifty said. ‘And they took to him with a blowtorch.’
‘Maybe,’ I acknowledged. ‘Either way, there’re more than ten of them and three of us, and they know we’re coming.’
‘So what do we do?’ Rizzo asked. ‘Pull out?’
I considered my options, and I could not believe what I was considering, but things seemed clear to me. ‘There’s hardly ever a group that big in one place, but they’re cocky because they know it’s just three of us coming, and they’re cocky because it’s south of the border and on their home turf. We may never get them all together again.’
‘What?’ Swifty hissed. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?’
‘Do you want to set back the IRA ten years?’ I asked him.
‘How?’ Rizzo asked.
‘First, we bore them to death,’ I said. ‘We move around and get into position, but then we wait, all night if necessary. After a few hours they’ll be cold and wet, and fed up, and then they’ll head inside for a cuppa.’
‘They’ll all be bunched up,’ Swifty realised.
‘Should we call this in first!’ Rizzo protested.
‘No time,’ I said. ‘They might leave and never come back. Besides, I know what the Major will say.’
‘He’d tell us to back off,’ Swifty said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
‘There’s ten or more of them,’ Rizzo protested.
‘Ten amateurs, soon to be cold and wet and fed up, rifles slung, and all bunched up,’ I said. ‘We hit them hard, spray the area from distance, but then leg it through the dark back across the border.’
Rizzo took a moment. ‘That could work.’
‘And we leave these weapons behind,’ Swifty said.
‘Are you with me?’ I asked Swifty.
‘Yeah, I’m in.’
‘Rizzo?’
He took a moment. ‘I’m in.’
‘Follow me, slow and careful, listen out carefully.’ I led them off, back towards the stream at a slow pace, then around to the south of the farm, halting one field short of the farm and its access road. ‘Hard routine, guys,’ I told them as I focused my telescopic sight on the farm, and on the windows I could see from here.
An hour passed, and it was an hour of steady rain, men seen coming and going, but my leather face mask was keeping me warm and dry. It gave me time to consider what we were doing, the reckless nature of it, but we were less than a mile from the border and could easily explain it away. Plus they were all armed, and if the Garda caught them then the gunmen assembled here would go to prison.
As I stood there in a cold black night, listening intently, I went through a wide range of emotions, but eventually found anger towards these men, the same men who had wounded the young lads from the Borderers, the men waiting to kill me and the lads.
But there was more to it than that. I had survived the kidnapping by a miracle, and in hindsight it terrified me to think what they would have done to me. They had frightened me retrospectively – not that I would tell anyone here that, I had lost some sleep, and I was angry about that. Stood there in the dark, I realised that I wanted, very much, to get back at them.
Another hour, and little movement was seen, but at 10.30pm men were seen gathering.
‘Now,’ I said, and led the guys across the field at a jog.
Halting aside a gate, I checked the area. ‘Rizzo, I need to stand on your knee. Swifty, steady me.’
They got into position and got ready, and I eased up like a circus performer, a peek taken and back down.
‘About four inside, six outside. So there are still some in the bushes.’ I took a moment. ‘OK, assuming all goes to plan, we hit anyone in the area between the house and the cars. Rizzo, go left, Swifty to the front doo
r, I go around the back, and you fire inside at anyone you see. Have a spare mag ready, spray it around. If his wife is in there, and you see her, don’t ... kill her. When I shout, back to this side of the house, weapons thrown down, pistols out.’
‘What if there’s someone in the bushes still?’ Swifty asked.
‘Then ... we’ll take fire from the rear. But I aim to be done in twenty seconds and gone. They’ll take longer to run back here. Oh, if you get the chance, spray the cars, stop them coming after us. And guys, don’t shoot anyone whose face you can’t see, that’ll be one of us!’
We waited in the blackness, now tense.
As we waited, I had the guys wipe any prints off the guns over and over, even the magazines, and finally I heard noises, so I lifted up again, now sure that the gunmen were cold, wet and pissed off, and gathering. I eased down.
‘Maybe they think we’ll attack at dawn,’ Rizzo mentioned.
‘You think that lot will lie still in the wet all night?’ I scoffed. ‘Besides, if we’ve been sold out then they expected us to take pictures of the farmhouse before they went to bed, maybe in the daylight tomorrow. OK, you ready?’
They were, and I led them over the gate, badly exposed if a car came at that moment, and up the tarmac driveway, soon through a gap in the hedge and approaching from behind the dozen cars parked at odd angles. Bent double, we inched around the vehicles and to the edge of the gravel driveway. I stopped, knowing that we’d make a noise on the gravel.
A dog barked, but the owner promptly told it to shut up.
Peering over the boot of a car, I suddenly saw about ten men coming out of the house – long green raincoats and hats, but none had weapons prone, a few weapons glimpsed under their coats. Whispering, I said, ‘Rizzo, five yards left, Swifty, two yards left. Standby ...’ I peered out. ‘Now!’
I lifted up and fired from the hip, emptying the magazine into a group of at least ten startled men, all bunched up for me – and in an instant I felt horrified at what I was doing, and very sorry for the men I was shooting. But I kept firing, and the thought passed. Two seconds later Rizzo and Swifty opened up, a hell of a racket created - brass casings tinkling off the cars, and the men fell quickly, most spun around; shouts, cries and moans permeating the dark night.
‘Out!’ I dropped the magazine, knelt, and re-loaded quickly, an image lingering in my mind of a man with half his face blown off.
With all the visible gunmen now down, I whispered, ‘Rizzo, go left to the window. Swifty, stay here.’ I broke right down the line of cars and sprinted around to the large lounge window, opening up at men hiding behind the door, two hit, one hit as he ran. Movement, and I took two giant steps to the right, firing into the kitchen, the glass shattering.
Back at the shattered lounge window, I pushed my upper body inside and found two men crawling, short bursts aimed at them. No one else was moving. Around the cars, I shouted, ‘Coming through,’ and I skidded to a halt. ‘On me!’
Rizzo ran back around. ‘What about the hedges?’ he asked, groans still coming from the gunmen.
‘Fire at the hedgerows,’ I said, the three of us firing over the cars into the dark night, and at the distant hedgerows. If there was anyone there, they’d be keeping their heads down.
Magazines swapped, I backed up and sprayed the vehicles, the guys joining in, glass shattering. With my magazine clicking empty I threw my AKM at the pile of bodies, taking out my pistol. Swifty ran forwards, placed down his AK47 and shoved the hands of a dead gunman onto it.
Rizzo threw his AK47 into the house porch, and we ran; back down the tarmac road, over the gate, and across the field, a fast pace maintained – and part of me felt like a common criminal. Back at the stream, we crossed over and headed north at a slow pace, checking around us carefully. We helped each other through the wire fence before diligently wiping it down.
Then I remembered the pistol the Major had given me. ‘Hang on.’ I took it out of its plastic bag and threw it hard across the border, hearing it land on the path. We turned and headed north.
‘We can’t risk a pick-up anywhere near here,’ I said. ‘So we walk for a few hours.’ We plodded on along a dark track. ‘Any injuries?’ They were fine.
‘Shit,’ Rizzo let out. ‘They waited for us, but we got ‘em.’
‘That we did,’ I agreed. ‘But just think of that twenty five year jail term when discussing this with anyone but the Major. Not even Smurf should know.’
‘Can’t wait to see tomorrow’s news,’ Swifty said as we walked. ‘Might have hit a big player. Or several.’
‘Did you see any women or kids?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Rizzo said. ‘Maybe they were upstairs or something.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, and we plodded on in the rain, avoiding the tarmac roads.
Reaching a wood, I remembered it from the map, and we edged slowly around it for an hour. At the far side we came across a courting couple, their car steamed up.
‘OK, we need a ride. Don’t hurt them, don’t speak, no accents.’
I opened a car door to a scream and dragged a naked girl out, and she ran off, Rizzo dragging out the guy at gunpoint, the young man running off.
Swifty jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car, I jumped into the back, Rizzo into the front passenger seat. Lights on, Swifty floored it down the track as I lifted a used condom.
‘Steady,’ I called. ‘Don’t draw attention to us, and we’ve got half an hour before the police are looking for this.’
‘Which way?’ Swifty asked as he reached main road.
‘Left, and then north east.’
He sped off, and we covered many miles quickly. I could read the signs of the villages and I knew the area, but this was all bandit country, and we’d not be welcome anywhere south of Belfast.
Coming up to thirty minutes in the car we passed a phone box and I told Swifty to dump the car in a field. He turned, smashed through a gate, and we skidded like we were on ice, a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
‘Idiot!’ I hissed at him as he laughed.
Jumping out, I led them back to the smashed gate at a jog, aware of cows in the field. On the tarmac road we finally ditched the sacking on our feet and tossed them away, soon back to the payphone.
‘Any police or Army seen, hands up, facemasks off,’ I told them. I dialled Bessbrook, coins in – a whiff of piss detected in the phone box, and I got the night duty officer, asking for an immediate pickup, the phone box conveniently giving the location in the centre of the dial.
With the phone down, we clambered through a hedge and waited.
‘Anyone got anything on them they shouldn’t?’ I asked, and we checked pockets, finding we had magazines. ‘Take them out, wipe them down, stuff mud in them and all over them, then in the bushes.’
They got to work, all magazines discarded, and we checked each other, stood shivering in the rain for forty minutes before heavy Land Rovers could be heard. Facemasks off, gloves off, they covered me with their pistols as I stepped into the road, soon waving down the patrol.
We clambered into the back of the first Land Rover, the same driver as the previous trip. The soldier looked over his shoulder, but said nothing, not even about the muddy mess we had made.
I put a finger to my lips, and we said nothing till we got back. It was now 1am, but the Major was still up. He walked us in, muddy feet wiped. In his office, we took off webbing and made safe pistols, soon getting a cuppa each.
‘Well?’ he finally said, addressing himself to me.
‘You may not like it,’ I cautioned with a deadly stare.
‘Let’s have it.’
‘We were sold out,’ I said. ‘Twenty men were waiting for us, all armed, hiding in the hedgerows.’
He took time to consider that. ‘The Mi6 man south of the border.’ He nodded to himself. ‘You withdrew?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘No?’
‘No one has ever seen that many gunmen in one
place before, so ... so I figured we’d deal them a blow.’
‘And?’
‘None were left standing when we left.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘And we left the weapons behind,’ Swifty put in, blowing on his cup of tea.
‘Tomorrow’s news will be ... dramatic, sir.’
‘The place you were picked up from was half way to Belfast?’
‘We nicked a car and drove up there,’ Rizzo said. ‘No prints left behind.’
‘Quick thinking,’ the Major commended. ‘Army has you down as being picked up twenty miles north. Well, I guess we wait the news, get some rest.’
After I had cleaned up and stowed my kit, I went and sat in Intel with my favourite lady captain.
‘Been out?’ she asked.
‘Belfast, but the intel was wrong, so we turned around and came back. Anything ... interesting happening?’
‘Not a sausage.’
In the morning the news was indeed dramatic, reports of a shoot-out on the border, nine men wounded, eight dead, some not expected to make it. I sat reading the intel reports, but they were just summary reports from the Garda.
At 9am I met with Swifty, Rizzo and the Major.
The Major began, ‘As you said, the news is dramatic. But, since we had no involvement, not an issue. And you’ll be pleased to know that three big players are dead, The Fox has been badly wounded. All the major agencies are rushing around, stunned that so many gunmen were caught up in this ... this internal feud. Prime Minister was briefed at an early Cobra meeting.’
Bob Staines knocked and stepped in. I was up quickly and I grabbed him around the throat, lifting off his feet and pinning him to a wall. The others closed in, but did not try and stop me.
‘Your man sold us out,’ I hissed, Bob looking terrified, and going red from strangulation.
The Major stood at my side. ‘We have some ... questions for you, regarding your man south of the border,’ he calmly began. ‘You see, my team got there to find an ambush being set-up, and so they withdrew. Do you ... happen to know anything about that?’