The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘What happens to the stuff we left behind?’ asked Davie.

  ‘It’ll be called in after a few days. Give the weather a chance to obliterate the evidence. The organisation is preparing to hand over more than a dozen arms stockpiles to the authorities as a sign of good faith.’

  ‘But we hold on to the good stuff, right?’

  O’Riordan winked. ‘You got it.’

  Seth Reed stood by the hedgerow as he waited for his son to finish going to the toilet. The South Armagh scenery was breathtaking: rolling hills, the forty-shades of green his travel agent had promised, even the cloying mist had an ethereal quality that softened the colours and gave the view the feel of a hastily-painted watercolour. It was hard to believe that until recently the area had been one of the most dangerous in the world, where British troops had to be ferried about in helicopters because they faced death and injury if they dared to venture on foot.

  When his wife had first suggested they spend their vacation touring Ireland he’d been reluctant. Her family originally came from the Republic and she was keen to go back to her roots and to get a feel for the country her ancestors had left almost a century earlier, but Reed believed that it was still too early, that the peace had yet to prove that it was a lasting one. She’d pouted, and had talked the travel agent into calling him direct. The travel agent had been persuasive, he’d even joked that the Reeds would be safer in Ireland than virtually anywhere in the States, and that the biggest danger they’d face would be hangovers from the Guinness. Between them, Kimberlee and the travel agent had talked Reed into it, and after a week in the country Reed was glad that they’d come: there were relatively few tourists around, the roads were a joy to drive on, and the people were unfailingly friendly and welcoming. When he got back to the States, he was definitely going to recommend the Emerald Isle to his friends. A few spots of rain splattered on his jacket and when he looked up more fell on his face. ‘Come on, Mark,’ he called. ‘It’s raining.’

  Mark appeared from behind a bush, wiping his hands on his knees.

  ‘Okay?’ said Reed.

  ‘Sure,’ said Mark. They went back to the car together. ‘Can I sit in the front, Dad?’

  ‘Ask your Mom.’

  Kimberlee agreed. She climbed out of the car and got into the back while Reed started the engine. The only thing he’d disliked about the trip so far was the choice of rental car which the travel agent had booked. It was a four door but it wasn’t an automatic and it had none of the extras that Americans take for granted, such as airbags and air-conditioning.

  Mark climbed into the seat vacated by his mother. Reed tried to get the windscreen wipers going but he pushed the wrong control lever and his turn indicator went on instead. He switched the turn indicator off and fumbled with the windscreen wiper lever as he accelerated. ‘Seatbelt, honey,’ chided Kimberlee behind him. ‘That goes for you too, Mark.’

  Reed gripped the steering wheel with his right hand as he groped for the seatbelt buckle. The rain got suddenly heavier, obscuring his vision. He’d only put the windscreen wipers on intermittent, he realised.

  ‘Honey, you’re on the wrong side of the road,’ said Kimberlee.

  Reed cursed himself under his breath. He was always forgetting that the Irish, like the Brits, insisted on driving on the left. He let go of the seatbelt buckle and reached for the windscreen wiper controls as he twisted the steering wheel to the right. The wipers came on, sweeping the water off the windscreen. It was only then that he saw the truck heading right for them. In the back, Kimberlee screamed.

  O’Riordan didn’t see the white car until they were almost upon it, careering across the road as if the driver had lost control. Davie Quinn banged on the horn and slammed on his brakes, but O’Riordan felt the big truck start to slide on the wet tarmac. He grabbed for the steering wheel.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’ Davie shouted.

  Despite Davie’s protests, O’Riordan could see that the truck was heading for the car. He pulled harder on the wheel, trying to get the truck over to the left, out of the car’s way. The road was narrow; there was barely enough space for the two vehicles even if they’d been driving perfectly straight. With the car in the middle of the road, a collision was inevitable.

  O’Riordan saw the driver, a middle-aged man with greying hair, wrestling with his steering wheel. He glimpsed a child in the front passenger seat, his mouth open in terror. Then there was a dull crump and the car spun away to the right, the windscreen shattered.

  Davie was shouting but O’Riordan couldn’t make out what he was saying as the offside wheels of the truck left the tarmac. Wet branches slapped across the windscreen and the truck tilted sharply to the left. The truck was half off the road and the tyres on the grass verge gripped harder than those on the wet tarmac, so the more Davie braked, the more the truck veered to the left. The steering wheel twisted out of Davie’s hands. O’Riordan felt his seatbelt dig into his chest and the truck bucked and reared and slammed through the hedge. O’Riordan pitched forward, his knees thumping into the dashboard, his arms flailing with the impact. Suddenly everything went still.

  O’Riordan shook his head. The seatbelt was tight up against his neck making it hard to breathe, and he felt around for the buckle. He found it and unclipped the belt, gasping for air as the nylon strap went slack. He rubbed his throat and looked across at Davie, who was hunched forward over the steering wheel. O’Riordan shook him by the shoulder. ‘Davie?’ he said.

  Davie turned slowly. His eyes were glassy and O’Riordan realised he was in shock, but other than that he appeared to be unharmed. O’Riordan twisted around in his seat. ‘Paulie?’ he shouted. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Paulie from the back of the truck. ‘What happened?’

  O’Riordan couldn’t help but grin at the banality of the question. He tried to open the door but it was jammed. ‘Davie, we’re going to have to get out your side,’ he said.

  There was a hiss of escaping steam and a series of clicks from the engine as if it hadn’t quite died. Davie fumbled with the handle and pushed the door open. The truck was leaning at a forty-five degree angle and they had to drop down from the open door onto the ground. Paulie was on his hands and knees, dragging himself out of the back of the truck. Davie went to help his brother as O’Riordan surveyed the damage. The offside wheels of the truck were in a ditch and it was resting on a hedge. The front axle was broken, a shattered tree branch had speared one of the tyres and the front of the vehicle was a twisted mess. The truck wasn’t going anywhere, even if they could find some way of getting it back onto the road.

  Davie helped Paulie to his feet. The truck made a groaning noise like a dying elephant and lurched further to the left, its offside wheels sinking deeper into the ditch. O’Riordan rubbed his chin, wondering what the hell they were going to do.

  The car they’d hit had slewed across the road and was resting nose down in the ditch on the far side of the road. Its boot had sprung open and O’Riordan could see it was filled with suitcases. On the ground next to the car lay a small bundle of clothes, but as O’Riordan looked at it closely he realised it was a child. A boy. He went over to see if there was anything that could be done but before he even got close he could see from the blood and the angle of the boy’s neck that he was dead. He’d obviously been thrown through the windscreen on impact.

  Davie came up behind O’Riordan. ‘Pat, what are we going … ?’ His voice tailed off as he saw the body. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said. ‘Is he … ?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Go back to the truck. Keep an eye out for other vehicles.’ O’Riordan stepped around the body of the boy and peered into the car. The driver was sprawled halfway through the shattered windscreen, his throat ripped open and his lower jaw a bloody pulp. The rain washed his blood across the bonnet, a red streak on the white metal. There was a woman in the back seat, unconscious but still held in place by her seatbelt. O’Riordan wiped his forehead w
ith his sleeve. He shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand and peered into the car. She didn’t seem to be bleeding. She was probably the wife of the dead man, mother of the dead child. Tourists, by the look of the suitcases. ‘Christ, what a mess,’ O’Riordan muttered to himself.

  He went back to the Quinn brothers. O’Riordan knew he had to make a decision, and quickly. The area they were in wasn’t highly populated, but it was only a matter of time before another vehicle came along. They could wait and hope that a van or a truck appeared which they could then commandeer and use to take away the consignment, but if the police turned up they’d be in deep trouble. If only Lynch hadn’t taken the Landrover. The Quinn brothers watched him nervously, waiting for him to make up his mind. Paulie was staring wide-eyed at the body of the boy on the ground. Davie had a hand on Paulie’s shoulder as if restraining him. The rain was coming down heavier now, the drops pitter-pattering on the roof of the truck. At least the bad weather meant they were unlikely to be spotted by a passing helicopter. O’Riordan stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the disabled truck. They could carry the arms, but not far. If they buried them in a nearby field, the police would be sure to find them.

  O’Riordan turned to look at the Quinn brothers. ‘On your way, lads,’ he said. ‘Cut across the fields, keep out of sight. Get as far away from here as you can. Give it a couple of hours, then hitch. Okay?’

  Davie nodded but Paulie continued to stare at the small body. ‘Paulie, there’s nothing we can do,’ said O’Riordan. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘He’s okay,’ said Davie. ‘I’ll look after him.’ He pulled his brother to a five-bar gate and helped him over. They disappeared into the rain.

  O’Riordan climbed into the back of the truck and ripped the polythene from the disposable bazooka. He was one of half a dozen volunteers who’d attended a training course on the operation of the M72. A former Green Beret had flown over from the States to demonstrate the firing of the weapon, using a replica.

  O’Riordan walked down the road until he was some fifty metres from the truck, then dropped down into the ditch. He pulled open the telescopic launcher-tube and flipped up the front and rear sights. The M72 was surprisingly light, weighing just about three pounds. He armed it and put it to his shoulder, gripping the weapon tightly in anticipation of the recoil.

  ‘Jesus, what a waste,’ he whispered. He fired, and immediately there was a deafening whooshing sound as the tube jerked in his hands. The missile shot towards the truck, leaving a white smoky trail behind it. It hit the truck just behind the driver’s cab and exploded in a ball of yellow flame. O’Riordan ducked his head as bits of debris flew by him. There were hundreds of smaller bangs as the ammunition exploded. O’Riordan kept down low into the ditch until the explosions subsided. A piece of metal smacked into his shoulder but not hard enough to do any damage. It lay in the sodden grass close to his foot. It wasn’t a bullet, it looked like a piece of the truck chassis.

  When he looked up again the truck was burning with thick plumes of smoke spiralling up into the leaden sky. O’Riordan went as close as he could and threw the mortar tube onto the fire. The truck was burning fiercely despite the rain and O’Riordan doubted that there’d be much of it left by the time it burned out. He ran to the gate, vaulted over it, and jogged across the recently ploughed field.

  Dermott Lynch was halfway through a pint of Guinness in a pub in the Temple Bar district of Dublin when he saw the news flash. The barman turned up the volume on the television set fixed to the wall by the entrance to the Gents toilet and stood watching it, his arms folded across his chest. The RTE1 announcer was reading from a sheet of paper. A man and a child killed. A woman in hospital. At first Lynch thought it was a road traffic accident, but then the picture cut away to footage of the burnt-out wreckage of the truck half-lying in a ditch.

  Lynch put down his Guinness. A cold prickling feeling ran down to the base of his spine. What the hell had gone wrong? The newsreader said that the truck was believed to have contained arms and ammunition. The police were looking for the driver of the truck, but there were as yet no witnesses to the accident. Lynch frowned. If the truck had been destroyed in the accident, what had happened to Pat and the Quinn boys?

  Lynch considered the consequences of the deaths. The IRA Army Council would mount an investigation and demand to know what had gone wrong. He’d have to explain why he’d left O’Riordan and the Quinn brothers, and while he didn’t think that he’d made a mistake by doing so, he doubted that McCormack would see it that way. The police would pull out all the stops to find out what had happened, and there’d be political ramifications, too. The Protestant paramilitaries wouldn’t hesitate to claim that the incident was a breach of the ceasefire. Lynch knew that he’d have to call McCormack, but he wanted to talk to the air traffic controller first. McCormack would demand an immediate meeting, Lynch was sure of that. And he’d insist that Lynch lie low, maybe even stay in Dublin until it had all blown over.

  The newsreader was replaced by an American soap opera and the barman turned down the volume. Lynch stared at the screen with unseeing eyes. He wondered where Pat was, and if he was okay. He must have got away with the Quinn boys, but that didn’t explain the state of the truck. Maybe he’d set fire to the truck to destroy the evidence. That at least made sense. Lynch shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was no use crying over spilt milk. He sipped his Guinness and wiped the creamy froth from his beard with the back of his hand.

  Lynch had a copy of the Daily Telegraph on the table in front of him, not because he was a regular reader of the British newspaper but because it would act as a clear signal to the man he was there to see. A stooped figure entered the smoky gloom of the pub and looked left and right. Lynch knew even before they made eye contact that it was the man he was there to meet. His name was Luke McDonough. He’d never been a member of the IRA but he was sympathetic to the Cause, and while he would never take an active role in any terrorist operation he was happy enough to supply information.

  McDonough came over to Lynch’s table and looked down at the newspaper. Lynch stood up and shook the man’s hand. McDonough’s skin was pale and pasty as if he didn’t get out in the sun much, and his fingernails were bitten to the quick. Lynch wondered if it was as a result of the man’s high-pressure job or if he was just the nervous type. He asked what McDonough wanted to drink. ‘Orange juice,’ he said, almost apologetically and sat down while Lynch went to buy it. When Lynch came back to the table, McDonough was flicking through the paper. He put it down and took his drink, toasting Lynch before drinking. ‘I’m working the early shift tomorrow,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  ‘Yeah, I bet you need a clear head in your job, right enough,’ agreed Lynch sympathetically.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said McDonough. He put down his drink, steepled his fingers under his chin and looked at Lynch as if he was studying a radar screen. There were deep crow’s feet either side of his pale grey eyes, as if he spent a lot of time squinting. ‘Your man asked me about a helicopter flying in and out of Howth a few days back. A Sea King, he said.’

  Lynch nodded. ‘Yeah. It came around Ireland’s Eye, picked up two men, and flew off to the east. Did you see it on your screens?’

  ‘Not personally, no. I was working ground control. But I’ve checked our records and we were in contact with it. Hardly surprising, Dublin radar goes down to about thirty feet above sea level all around there. He couldn’t have got within twenty miles of Howth without being spotted.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  McDonough began to bite at the flesh at the corner of a fingernail, gnawing away like a gerbil. His teeth were yellow and ratlike, and he glanced furtively around as if he feared being chastised for the habit. ‘No way of telling,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t filed a flight plan. They came in on a heading of 280 degrees but that doesn’t mean anything.’ McDonough stopped biting his nails. ‘Your man said the Sea King was red, white and blue. Red tail
, white body, blue on the bottom?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lynch.

  McDonough’s eyes sparkled. He folded his hands together and put them under the table as if hiding them. ‘I reckon it could have been one of the Westlands operated by the Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive.’

  ‘Not the army?’

  McDonough shook his head. ‘Nah, they use them for radar trials and experimental work. It’s a mystery what it was doing in Howth, it shouldn’t even be in Irish airspace.’

  ‘Okay, so let’s assume it was an MoD chopper,’ said Lynch. ‘Where could it have gone?’

  ‘They certainly didn’t land at Dublin, and whichever way they went they must have given the airport a wide berth. I checked with Belfast and they’ve no record of a Sea King landing there at the time you’re talking about. They’re were plenty of army Lynxes and Pumas around and a couple of Chinooks, but no Sea Kings.’

  ‘But they could have landed anywhere else, away from the airports?’

  ‘Oh sure. A field, even on a ship at sea. From the sound of it, I’d say they went to the mainland.’

  ‘Yeah? Why?’ Lynch sat forward, suddenly interested.

  ‘Why else would they use a Sea King? It’s got a huge range, more than 750 miles with a standard fuel load. And if it was a Procurement Executive chopper, it could have easily been fitted with extra tanks. It could have gone all the way to London. A Lynx’s range would be less than 400 miles, and they’re a hell of a lot more common in Ireland than Sea Kings. Even the Westland Wessex that 72 Squadron uses in the north can only fly about 350 miles on standard tanks, maybe 500 with auxiliary fuel. No, if they went to the trouble of using a Sea King, there must have been a reason, and the range is the only thing I can think of. If they were staying in Ireland or landing at sea, they’d have used a Lynx or a Wessex for sure.’

  Lynch nodded excitedly. ‘Okay, so if we assume it crossed the Irish Sea, how do I find out where it landed?’

  ‘You’d need to speak to someone like me over in the UK. Wales first. That’s where the pilot would have checked in. But I don’t know anyone over there, not anyone Irish, anyway. But I could have a go myself.’