by Chris Ryan
'Some weeks later I got posted to Northern Ireland, and I found out from the R.UC who'd been responsible for the explosion. It was one of the leading players in Belfast, a guy called Declan Farrell. Of course I wanted to top him, and I got a chance one night when he came to a weapons hide at a farm. But one of the group was the IUC's best informer, so the head-shed wouldn't let us fire.'
I stopped because I could see Mac's eyeballs rotating.
The things I was saying shouldn't have been heard by anyone outside the Regiment; not even the police
should know what had gone on across the water.
'Where were you stationed?' Bates asked.
'Classified information!' snapped the ops officer. 'He can't tell you that.'
I looked from one to the other before going on.
'Anyway, Jhat was when I decided to go after Farrell on my own. I thought I could take him out single-handed.
I was going to shoot him at the place where he was living. Highly irregular, of course, but it seemed the only way. It turned out that some other security organisation already had him under surveillance, and they picked me up…'
'So?' the sergeant prompted.
'I came back to Hereford, never finished my tour.
But the Regiment were very good: they could have ITU'd me but they let me off with a caution. I tried to call it a day and forget the whole thing. But then it started again.'
I finished my tea and paused before continuing. 'In November a team of our lads went out from here to train the President of Colombia's bodyguard. I was in command. We were half-way through the course at a military camp down country, everything going well, when we travelled up to the capital one weekend for a bit of 12. and tL. And suddenly there the bastard was: Farrell, can you believe it, in a Colombian restaurant, with a couple of other Paddies and some natives.
'Obviously the PI1LA was into drug-running and arms-dealing, big time. Anyway, two of the embassy staff were stupid enough to go down to the restaurant to get a look at them. The next thing was, the pair was lifted, along with one of our ruperts who'd been doing liaison.'
'Ruperts?' Bates frowned.
'Officers. Well, that caused a big panic. We got clearance from DAS - the Colombian secret police - to bust the operation. We followed the kidnappers down into the Amazon jungle, and things ended up with a fire-fight at a coke-manufacturing plant miles from anywhere. Farrell got wounded and captured.'
'So you think this kidnap is a vendetta by Farrell?'
Bates asked.
'Not directly. It can't be, because he never knew who it was that had come after him. Before that last
moment, when we picked him up, he'd never seen me, ' hadn't a clue who I was. For all he knew I might have
been Colombian. He couldn't have equated me with any problem he'd had in Ulster, and in the jungle he was just shot by some strange soldier and taken into custody. Someone else in the PI1LA must have ordered the lift - somebody at this end, when news came back that Farrell had been nicked.'
'Unless he's already escaped,' the sergeant suggested.
Jimmy, the int officer, suddenly came to. 'No. No, he's still inside.' Blinking through his spectacles, he turned back to the most recent sheet of paper in his file and said, 'At least, he was yesterday evening. The British and Colombian governments are negotiating about his extradition.'
'In that case,' the sergeant persisted, 'how did the IRA know who to come after?'
'My fault,' I admitted. 'I blew it. After Christmas I took local leave in Ulster. I told my people in the Regiment I'd gone back to the mainland, but in fact I stayed put. I got Tracy across and we took a holiday cottage on the north coast. I'd been told it was a safe area, used by tourists, so one night I went to the pub in the village and got talking to a local about fishing. That was all, but it was enough to give them a line on me.'
'This guy Farrell,' said the ops officer. 'What is he in the PII:&?'
Jimmy flicked through his file. 'At the time of the supermarket bomb incident he was adjutant of the Belfast Brigade. But since then we believe he's taken charge of what they call “international liaison”. That means drug-running, arms-dealing - anything that raises funds and weapons from abroad.'
The detective sergeant rubbed his chin, his fingers scratching on the early-morning bristles. 'What sort of a person is he?'
'If that man fell into a pit of shit,' I said bitterly, 'he'd come out smelling like roses. He's got a charmed life. I mean, I ought to have topped him two or three times already, and look what's happened now. He may be in the nick, but that hasn't stopped him.'
Suddenly I remembered the presence of the female constable, scribbling in the background, and felt the color rise in my cheeks as I turned to her and said, 'Sorry…'
Still writing, she gave a quick grin and raised her left.
hand, and I felt myself warming to her.
'The thing is, he's a well-educated guy,' I blundered on. 'He's got a university degree. He's big, dark, good- looking, he's a bit of a wine buff… I don't know what it is that makes him tick.'
A telephone rang. The ops officer swung round, picked up the receiver and listened. After a few seconds he said, 'That's fine. We'll expect you then,' and hung up. Turning back to us he said, 'That was Special Branch. Because of the nature of the incident there's a standby team coming down from London. They'll be here in three hours' time. Geordie, you're looking knackered - you'd better get your head down. Is there anything else, Sergeant?'
'Nothing immediate. We'll want to look at the house first thing in the morning. And Geordie, you'll come with us.'
'Fair enough.'
'I'll take that photo with me. Once Forensic have been over it I'll have it copied, so that we can circulate prints. Then no doubt SB'll want it. By the way…' He looked back at Mac. 'No press release of any kind. The last thing we want is for this to get into the papers.'
'Don't worry,' Mac assured him. 'I will personally throttle anyone who talks.'
'All fight, then.' Bates turned back to me. 'Seven o'clock at the guardroom?'
'I'll be there.'
TWO
I spent the rest of that night in the sergeants' mess, in the room I shared with a mate, Pat Newman. He, being married, lived at home, and normally neither of us slept there, using the place as a store for some of our kit. It was a small, bare room, with little more than a bed, a wardrobe and a washbasin as furnishings. The bed was piled with our gear - bergens, para bags and webbing - so I heavet the lot off into a corner. There was a sheet in the cupboard, I knew, but I couldn't be bothered to make the bed at that stage, so I just kicked off my shoes and got under the top blanket. I felt .jaded and filthy.
Normally I would at least have washed my face and cleaned my teeth, but such a wave of exhaustion had swamped me that all I wanted was to lie down and pass out.
The next thing I knew I was wide awake. For a few seconds I couldn't think where the hell I was: strange room, narrow bed, unfamiliar window already allowing in the grey dawn light, birds singing outside. Then back it all came with a bang.
My watch said 5.35. Jesus! Special Branch would be here any moment. I jumped up, dug out my sponge-bag and went along to the washroom, where a shave and a shower brought me back to reality. My biological time- clock might have been all to blazes, but the combination of hot water over my face and alarm at my family's predicament soon cleared my brain.
By six o'clock I was back at the guardroom, and the Special Branch Rover rolled down to the barrier a few minutes later. The guard commander had been told to take the party to the ops room, so I volunteered to show them the way. The boss figure was Commander John Fraser, a slender, lightly-built guy in his forties with a thin face, sandy hair and a slightly harassed expression: not physically impressive, but with a reassuring manner that quickly inspired confidence. I noticed he had taken trouble over his appearance. He had a slight Cockney accent, but his voice, like his presence, was unobtrusive and comfortable.
Wi
th him came a sidekick in the form of a burly detective sergeant called Denis Haynes, wearing a hairy tweed jacket, and a blonde, pale-faced young woman detective constable with looks reminiscent of Barbra Streisand. At the first introduction I missed her name, but it turned out to be Karen Terraine.
In the ops room Mac gave the newcomers a short brief. Fraser's most urgent request was for a room that could act as a control centre for the duration of the incident: somewhere with secure comms in which his own staff and the CID could work alongside each other, with immediate recourse to the military if they needed it. The request presented no problem, because up there, on the first floor of the Kremlin, one room was kept ready for just such an emergency. After a quick look, the commander pronounced it ideal.
Mac realised that the visitors' next most pressing need was to get some food and drink down their necks, so he handed Fraser a print-out of the statement I'd given earlier in the night and despatched us all to the sergeants' mess for breakfast.
As the others started down the stairs I hung back with Mac and asked, 'How much can I tell him, Boss?'
'Anything he wants to know,' he replied. 'With Special Branch, no problem.'
Until that moment I hadn't felt hungry, but as I led the party through the dining room towards the kitchen counter, the smell of bacon brought my appetite alive, and I got myself a big fry-up: two eggs, bacon, sausages, potatoes, tomatoes - the lot. So did Fraser and his sergeant, but I noticed that the woman DC, who had a cracking figure, stuck to tea and a piece of toast.
For privacy we took over a separate table, and as we sat down I saw Fraser look at me in an appraising but sympathetic way. 'Just in from South America, are you?'
'That's right.'
'Not a very nice homecoming, I'm afraid.'
I suddenly felt choked, so I simply shook my head.
'Not to worry- we'll get the villains sorted. You may not know, but there's a major incident plan permanently in place for just this kind of emergency.
Within that framework there are three planned responses - one for airport hijack, one for siege and one for hostage-rescue. In your case, the hostage recovery plan, Operation Beehive, is already under way.'
'Sounds OK. But what does it involve?'
'In this case, surveillance on all flights to Ireland, north and south. Increased surveillance on suspected I1LA players resident in this country, and increased surveillance on safe houses used by them. Numerous other checks. We'll be looking to see if certain characters are going about their business as normal, or whether they appear to have taken a sudden holiday.
We'll put word out through our touts that special payments are in prospect for the right information. Of course, I can't promise anything - but what I can tell you is that our responses are frequently tested on major exercises, and we're confident they work. Now - wait while I read these notes.'
Nobody spoke while Fraser went through the printout, eating as he read. Then he brought out a mobile phone, dialled, turned away from us, and had a short conversation, his voice too low for me to hear.
Turning back, he said, 'I just threw three or four names into the frame. What about this fellow Farrell?
What was he doing in Colombia?'
I gave him an outline of what had happened: how, after Farrell and his colleagues had lifted our rupert and two diplomats from a restaurant near the British Embassy in Bogoti, our follow-up attempt to rescue them had taken us to a brand-new laboratory built deep in the jungle. Fraser listened carefully as I explained how the woman had been killed and the two men saved, but I sensed that his real interest lay in Ulster.
'When your wife was killed.., how did you find out who was behind the bomb?'
'Through contacts in the RUC.'
'Who do you know there?'
'A man called Morrison, mainly - a chief superintendent. He came over to lecture us when we were on the Northern Ireland course.'
'Morrison, Morrison… I know him. A good man, that; he'll help us. Are there any of your colleagues I can talk to?'
'About Farrell? Not really. None of our guys saw him in Northern Ireland. The people who do know all about him are the Det - the int boys in Belfast. They've got a big file on him.'
'All right. We'll get anything relevant sent over by secure fax.'
'Can I ask you something?'
'Of course.'
'What's this kidnap in aid of? I mean, what do they hope to get out of it?'
The reply was what I'd been expecting. 'Simple: they want Farrell back.'
'But what can I do about that? The man's in the nick in Bogotfi. At least, that's where I last heard of him. The Colombians could have topped him by now. They could have moved him somewhere else. I can't get anywhere near him.'
'I know, I know.' Fraser gave a flicker of a smile, quick but friendly. 'But now that these guys have managed to grab a bargaining counter they'll exploit it to the hilt.'
'What do you expect them to do?'
'They'll wait for a few days. Then they'll come up
with a demand for a swap.'
'By phone?'
'Yep. They may call your home or the barracks here.
We'll get a tap on your own line - in fact, it's being done already.'
'What if they do come on?'
'Keep them talking as long as possible. The longer they're on, the better the chances we have of tracing the call. They'll try to keep things short, to cut down that possibility, so it's up to you to prevaricate.'
'So I pretend to negotiate - say that we're getting some action over Farrell or whatever…?'
'We'll come to that later - but basically, yes, make it sound as though things are moving at your end.'
'They won't ring from an ordinary number, though.
If they did, we could get straight on to it.'
'No. They'll use a mobile or a phone fitted with a chip that blocks any attempt to back-track calls.'
'Any idea where they'll be?'
'London, most likely. West London.'
'Why there?'
'Safety in numbers. It's such a vast conurbation, swallows people up. They've got safe houses there in places like Ealing, Acton. One problem is, the players keep shifting their ground. Here today, gone tomorrow.'
'Would they move the hostages too?'
'Less likely. There's always a risk someone will see them. Once they've got them somewhere secure, they'll probably keep them there.'
'Are these the people who've been planting the London bombs?'
'Could be.' He gave an enigmatic smile, as if he knew more than he wanted to say. 'The London Active Service Unit's pretty strong. By the way, where's that photograph?'
'The CID guy has it. Why?'
'I'll take possession of it presently. There are various techniques we can use on it - computer enhancement, for instance. I gather the two men are holding weapons?'
'That's right.'
'Well, if we blow the picture up and enhance areas of it with the computer, we may be able to make out numbers or other distinguishing marks on the pistols. It may turn out that one of the weapons has been used in a known crime elsewhere. Equally, there may be a small area of tattoo or a scar showing on a wrist or neck - something that may give us a clue to the identity of the men. You'd be surprised how much information an infinitesimally small piece of evidence can produce.
Now…' He glanced at his watch. 'I think the CID will be needing you at the scene of the crime.'
The CID Vectra was parked outside the guardroom.
Fraser introduced himself and his team, and after a quick discussion it was agreed that while the bosses carried out the site inspection their number twos would stay in camp and get their incident room set up. For a few minutes the whole crowd disappeared into the Kremlin to discuss the layout, then we were off in the Special Branch lover, with the Streisand look alike driving and myself calling the thrns.
The sun was just up, setting the brick-red soil on fire and illuminating the hedges, now fully out, thei
r new leaves glowing the freshest green. Except for the black cloud looming over my head, it was a perfect Herefordshire spring day.
'This is it,' I announced as the car turned into our lane, and there stood the little brick cottage, snug among its trees, with the peaceful woods and fields rising gently into the distance all round.
'Stop here, please, Karen,' said Fraser. 'We'll walk the last bit. What a place!'
He and Bates spent a minute changing out of their city shoes and into rubber boots. As I waited, I was hit by a blast of remorse. I should never have brought Tracy here, I thought bitterly. I'd imagined that the cottage woald be the perfect home for my family, and yet it seemed to have a deadly effect on any woman connected with it: Kath killed, and now Tracy kidnapped. Even on that fine morning the house had lost a good deal of its charm.