by Chris Ryan
He might have got away with it if it weren't for the lumps of rock sticking out from the sandy bank. By sheer bad luck the quad came down on him and pinned him against a rock that had no give in it, dealing his left leg a fearsome smack. He finished up face-down in some grass with the machine on top of him and the engine still running, wheels turning.
I'd been tiding next in line, and there was just enough light for me to see him go arse over tip down the bank. In a flash I was offmy own bike and running down towards the casualty.
Fred was pinned down by a handlebar in the small of his back. His right leg was straight, but my torch-beam showed that his left leg was bent out at a diabolical angle.
I yelled, 'Don't move!' and reached under the handlebar panel to switch off his ignition. The smell of petrol was everywhere. I had visions of a sudden w00f.r and the pair of us on fire.
Fred was just moaning, 'Shit! Shit! Shit! My fucking leg!'
'Keep still,' I told him again. With a big heave I rolled the bike off him, back on to its wheels. At that
moment heads appeared against the sky on the tim of the ravine above, and somebody shouted, 'Get up, wanker!'
'Bollocks!' I yelled at them. 'He got a bad break. Get on the mobile for the chopper. Tell them the casualty's got a broken leg, high up. Femur or hip.'
I knelt down beside l=red. His eyes were screwed tightly shut. 'How is it?'
'Fucking horrible.' He tried to move and gave a groan.
'Stay how you are. It'll be better if we don't try to move you. The doc's on his way. He'll be here in twenty minutes.'
The other guys came down and gathered round, making sympathetic noises now. Since we were only training, we had only a limited medical pack to hand, and so couldn't give Fred anything to ease the pain. But we wrapped him in our sweaters to keep him warm and covered him with ponchos to throw the rain off. I stayed with him while the others recced round for a place at which the chopper could put down. The ravine was too narrow for the pilot to hover, andit was obvious we'd have to carry the casualty up on to more level ground; but I reckoned it was better to wait until the doc had put a shot of morphine into him and got the leg splinted.
As I chit-chatted to keep up his morale, the rest tied ropes on to the stranded quad. With one guy steering it and two bikes pulling from above, they heaved it up on to the open hillside. The fuel tank had been punctured on the top, presumably by impact with a rock, but apart from a few dents and scratches the machine still seemed in remarkably good nick. The rest of the guys then got their bikes deployed in a big circle, with their headlamps shining inwards, to make a pool of light on which the chopper could put down.
The recovery went without a hitch. In twenty-two minutes from call-out the standby Puma was overhead and settling towards the lighted patch. In a few more seconds Doc Palmer and his medic were beside the injured man with their bags of tricks. Within five minutes they had him hot to trot, well doped with morphine, his left leg secured in a pneumatic splint blown up like a giant condom, which held the broken limb snugly alongside the good one in the stretcher.
While they were working we loaded the bent quad into the Puma and lashed it down. Then four of us carried Fred up out of the ravine and slid him on to the floor of the chopper. The last we saw of him, he was giving a cheerful wave as the helicopter lifted away.
On our way back to camp I felt depressed. With four days to go, we were a man down and urgently in need of a replacement. But then, as if Pat had intoned Allah tearim ('God is good') a few hundred times, I found we had one: that afternoon, clearance had at last come through from Washington for Tony Lopez to join the team.
For me this was a big breakthrough, and it gave my morale a boost. Tony was the guy I wanted more than anyone else - partly because he too would recognise the target and remove any possibility of identification error, and partly because I knew he was a ferociously effective operator, veteran of many hairy operations in Panama and elsewhere. Having spent five weeks in gaol with him, I was absolutely confident that we could rub along together. Besides, he knew more about the Arab world than the rest of us put together, because, a couple of years before the Gulf, he'd run a SEAL team job in Abu Dhabi, instructing the local forces in weapon training and close-quarter battle techniques. Like Pat, he'd done a course in Arabic, and had a smattering of the language.
Until then I'd observed the letter of the law and hadn't given him (or anybody else) the slightest hint about what I was doing. I'd had to tell Fraser that I'd be abroad at the end of the week for six or seven days, but I hadn't said what the operation was or where it would take place.
Now, with the agreement of the ops officer, I was able to put Tony in the picture.
When he heard what the deal was, he leapt up and punched the air with loud whoops of 'Great fuckin' snakes!'
'You're going to have to do the explosives,' I warned him. 'That was poor old Fred's job.'
'No sweat!' he cried. 'I've blown the shit out of more goddamn automobiles, trucks, houses, trashcans, bridges and railway lines than you could ever imagine.'
For a more thorough briefing, we decided that he should come out to the cottage and cook a celebration dinner.
The enemy, however, had other plans. At six-thirty that evening I'd just reached home when the incident room rang to say that the PIRA had called what they thought was my own number. I was to return immediately.
Having scorched back, I listened with a mixture of rage and fascination to the brief tape recording.
'I'll speak to Geordie Sharp,' said a man with a strong Belfast accent.
'I'm sorry,' replied Karen, the Streisand girl, who was on duty, 'he's working at the moment.'
'Can I call him somewhere else?'
'Afraid. not,' she said. 'He's out and about.'
'Who are you, then?'
'I'm looking after the house for him. Shall I get him to call you? Who's speaking, please?'
'Nobody he's heard of. What time will he be back?'
'What time is it now? I haven't got a watch.'
'Now? It's twenty-five past six.'
'Well… he said seven o'clock.'
'Half an hour, then?'
'That should be fine. Can I give him any message?'
'No. I'll call.'
'What name shall I tell him?'
'No name.'
'No name?'
'You can say Kevin.' And with that the man had switched off.
The call had been made from a mobile. From the way the signal came and went we were pretty sure he'd been in a car, driving around. He'd been on the air only a few seconds; Special Branch would have needed four or five minutes to DF him accurately. But at least there was now a chance of another call coming through for them to work on.
I listened to the tape three times. The twang of the accent - 'nay', almost 'nayee', for 'now' - took me straight back to Northern Ireland and the slimy, sleazy methods of the PItLA. In particular I thought of the night when, lying in a ditch a few yards from an isolated farmhouse, I could have topped Farrell as he stood there bollocking some underlings for failing to go through with a shoot. I remembered how he'd roared 'Cunts!' at them, addressing them as though they were shit. The guy had been barely thirty yards from me. My companion and I could have dropped the whole group of players - but the head-shed had forbidden us to open fire because one of them was then the most valuable tout in business.
This guy on the tape had the same sort of peremptory, domineering manner. The way he'd started in - 'I'll speak to Geordie Sharp' - immediately put a ,stamp on him. There was no question of'can I…?' or 'please', just arrogance and bluster.
'Christ!' I muttered. 'Just wait till the bastard comes through again. I'll sort him.'
'Take it easy, Geordie,' said Fraser, who'd come flying back into the incident room from the digs he'd taken in town. 'Whatever your feelings, it's no good getting stroppy with these people. They're always hoping to make you lose your rag, and if you do you play into their hands.'
'OK,' he agreed. 'I've been to the supermarket and got the stuff to cook something real good. I'll see you later.'
As I hung around, the SB girl, Karen, began to get on my tits again. I had to admit that she'd handled the call as well as anyone could have - she'd tried to keep the guy on the line, and given nothing away - yet there was something about her that annoyed me, an air of complacency that came over more in the way she looked and acted than in anything she said. She was wearing a track suit of dark-blue velvety material, and she seemed unable to keep still. She .was forever looking at her nails, filing one of them for a second or two, bringing a mirror out of her handbag, tweaking at her eyebrows, patting her fair hair into place, all as if she was trying to attract attention. The trouble with her, I decided, is that she's too damned pleased with her looks. I also caught her staring at me a couple of times in a way that was strictly unoperational. I realised that she must have been bored to tears, sitting around day after day on her fanny with nothing happening, living in some dreary bed-and- breakfast dump away from her home, wherever that was.
I knew I should have made an effort to chat her up and be friendly, but I just had too much on my mind.
Seven o'clock came and went. Seven-thirty, eight, eight-thirty.
Fraser could see I was getting more and more steamed up. 'Relax, Geordie,' he said. This is standard practice. They do it to wind you up. Don't fall for it.
Stay cool.'
'It's OK for you,' I said. 'It isn't your kid they've got.'
'I know. But I do have a little girl about Tim's age. I can imagine what you're feeling.'
I'd been so wrapped up in my own problems that I'd never paused to think about Foxy's domestic circumstances. The news that he had a family made him seem suddenly more human. Looking at the lines on his forehead I thought, You must have started late, to have a daughter of four. And he, as if reading my mind, added, 'I didn't get married till I was thirty-seven.'
'Sorry,' I mumbled. 'I didn't mean anything personal.'
He smiled, and as he came past where I was sitting he gave me a bump on the arm with the heel of his hand.
At nine o'clock I rang Tony. 'Listen,' I said. 'The bastards haven't called. They're stringing us along.'
'Aw, shit. I've made a hell of a Mexican bean stew.'
'Go ahead and eat it, then. I don't know when I'll get back.'
‘I'll keep some warm for you anyhow.'
'Thanks, Tony.'
It was nearly eleven when the call at last came through. I was sitting by the phone, but not wanting to appear too eager I let it ring five times before I picked up the receiver. Then I just said, 'Yes?', 'Geordie Sharp?'
'Yep.'
'I'm calling about your family.'
Was this the same voice as on the tape? I didn't think so. A Belfast accent, all right, but somehow different.
The connection was brilliantly dear, as if the call was short-distance. I looked across at Fraser and raised a thumb.
'Kevin, is it?' I said.
'It is not. A friend of Kevin's.'
'Oh - right.'
'You're wanting them back.'
'Where are they?'
'I said, you're wanting them back. Are you not?'
'Of course.'
'You know what to do, then.'
'What?'
'Get our man out.'
'What man?'
'Declan Farrell.'
'Farrell?' I said. 'Who's he?'
'Look, if you want to see your little boy again, or your girlfriend, you'll not mess about.'
'Wait a minute. I don't know who you're talking about. Who is Farrell?'
'It's the man you were after murdering at Ballyconvil. You know him.'
'Bally-what? I never heard the name before. Where's
this guy supposed to be?'
'The Brits have him.'
'What, in Belfast?'
'No, on the mainland.'
'What's happened?. Is he in the nick or something?'
'In gaol, so he is.'
'What am I supposed to do about that?'
'Ask around. Find out where he's been put, and spring him.'
'But I'm army, not police. I don't have the contacts.
Besides, I'm working. I don't have the time.'
'I said - ask around.'
'All right. Listen, I'll do what I can. Give me a couple of days. Then I'll get back to you.'
'You will not. I'll call you in two days' time. That's
Thursday. Seven o'clock.'
'Hello?'
I was going to try and glean some scrap of information about how the hostages were, but the line had gone dead.
'Well done!' said Fraser keenly. 'That was great, the way you kept him on the air. Let's see what the boys have managed.'
A couple of minutes later we learnt that the call had been traced to a phone box in West Belfast. Of course, by the time the P, UC arrived there the caller would have gone, but there was a chance of getting some fingerprints. The fact that the PICA had rung from Northern Ireland alarmed me, as it seemed to work against Special Branch's theory that London was the most likely place for the hostages to be held. But Fraser remained unruffled, saying that, naturally, their spokesman would phone from Belfast wherever the prisoners were.
The exchange left me screwed up with a seething mixture of anger and frustration. The arrogance of the guy's manner had really pissed me off.. That was bad enough, but almost worse was my own helplessness.
What the hell could I do? If I'd lost my rag and called him a scumbag he'd merely have laughed. If I'd admitted I knew where Farrell was he'd have gone on saying, 'Get him out, then.'
Did the PIIA realise I'd been in Colombia and had been responsible for Farrell's capture? The caller had ,given no sign of knowing that, but it made little difference. Somehow the terrorists had established the connection between me and their big player, and little details - like the fact he was in a high-security prison were not going to worry them.
Screw the nut, I told myself. Like Foxy says: stay cool.
It was midnight by the time I got home. I found Tony asleep on the settee in the sitting room with the TV burbling some crap about fitted wardrobes. Going in quietly I switched it off, got down behind the armchair and let out a loud yell - whereupon he leapt eight feet in the air and came down facing the door in an exaggerated crouch, as if to take on all corners.
'Great sentry you'd make,' I told him, rising into view.
'Boy!' he gasped. 'Did you give me a fright!'
'Have a drink. How about a Scotch?'
'You having one?'
'Sure. I need something after that.' While I poured two drinks I told him about the telephone contact. He brought out the remains of the bean stew he'd cooked with such care, and I ate it at the kitchen table gratefully enough, though gasping a bit at the chillies while I filled him in between mouthfuls on what had happened.
'This is driving me crazy,' I told him. 'There's no way we can get at them.'
'What are Special Branch doing?'
'Looking around and listening. Checking the movements of known players, going through their own records on the central computer. That's about all they can do. Tony - d'you think I'm crazy to go on this operation?'
'Not at all. You wouldn't achieve anything if you didn't go - except making yourself feel real bad.'
'That's true. But what if I get written off?'
'Might be the best way of getting the hostages released.'
I stared at him. 'You're joking.'
'Nope. I mean it. If you disappeared from the scene the terrorists' emotional blackmail would be at an end.
They couldn't exert anywhere near the same pressure through anyone else. The
y'd probably just turn Tracy and Tim loose somewhere and call it a day.'
'You think so? Do the IliA ever release hostages?'
'Sure, if they've nothing to gain by holding them any longer. I was talking to Fraser about it this morning.'
'But Tracy's seen their people. She knows several faces by now.'