Stand By, Stand By

by Ryan, Chris

  As always on that kind of job, the prime enemy was boredom. After a couple of hours with no activity or movement, I was bored out of my mind. My thoughts went round and round in circles, but kept coming back to two subjects. The nice one was Tracy, the less pleasant was the edginess in my mother-in-law’s voice. It wasn’t like her to be as sharp as that.

  At least, when Mike and I were both awake, we could chat. As casually as possible, I brought up the subject of Declan Farrell. I’d pretended I’d heard about the chain-saw incident earlier, from someone else, and wondered what sort of a man he might be. ‘He must be a right hard bugger, to do a thing like that.’

  ‘He is,’ Mike agreed. ‘He’s supposed to have a filthy temper. I don’t know how many people he’s kneecapped.’

  ‘What drives him? I mean, what makes him do it?’

  ‘What makes any of them do it? It’s bred into them from infancy. You’ve heard those street kids of three and four effing and blinding. You’ve seen them throwing stones at the patrols. It’s in their blood. They grow up knowing nothing else.’

  ‘Have you ever seen Farrell?’

  ‘A couple of times. He’s quite an impressive-looking guy, I have to admit.’

  ‘But he’d never actually do an operation now? Too senior?’

  ‘I dunno. They’ve lost a lot of lower-grade operators lately. They may be thin on the ground. Besides, he likes getting involved. Also, he’s that arrogant, he might come out just to show the lads how things should be done. If they’ve fucked up on the last couple of jobs – as they have – he might fancy giving a lead himself.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll come tonight?’

  ‘Could do. Why – you scared?’

  I forced myself to laugh. ‘No, just curious.’ Suddenly I realized I’d used that expression before, and disciplined myself never to use it again.

  There was no change of plan during the day. Every time the desk came through the message was the same: ‘NTR – Nothing to Report.’ In the absence of any more news from the touts, we assumed that the shoot would go down at 2200 that night.

  On that dull winter afternoon, soon after five, we moved forward again to take up the same position in the ditch. I noticed that the wind was dropping and the temperature falling, but paid no particular attention.

  From the net we knew that the babysitting team had stayed in situ, like us, and that the Det were moving out into the country again. So were our intercept cars. Across a wide area of the countryside, the trap was being set.

  This time the players were early – and where they came from, nobody could say. We got no warning; somehow, they eluded the Det. Suddenly, at only 2120, there were lights coming up the road from behind us. I managed to put a call through while the vehicle was still at the gate and somebody was undoing the lock, but then, as it cruised in past us, we had to go quiet.

  This time it was a car – an old two-litre Rover, superficially similar to our own Interceptor. The driver swung round to the right beside the end of the cottage, then backed out and came forward again, to stop, facing the road, almost in front of us. Close as we were, we couldn’t see the registration number, which looked as if it had been deliberately caked with cowshit. Four men got out and slammed the doors, not bothering to keep the noise down. I guessed they’d all had a couple of pints. Then one opened the boot, lifted out a bundle, and all four walked across to the barn. Seconds later somebody struck a match and a gas pressure-lamp hissed into action.

  A harsh yellow glare flooded the inside of the building. One of the men seemed to realize that they were being careless, because he came back to the threshold, looking to right and left, and said loudly, ‘This fecking barn’s supposed to have doors on it, too. Whatever happened to them?’

  ‘Bollocks to the doors,’ said another voice. ‘Get fecking changed.’

  From the bundle somebody sorted out long black garments, and all four began to pull them on.

  In Mike’s ear I whispered, ‘Recognize anyone?’

  He nodded twice, staring intently.

  ‘Farrell?’

  He shook his head.

  In a minute or so the four men were encased in black from head to foot. One of them had opened up the hide, and was handing out the rifles and loaded magazines. I heard magazines clicking home.

  I felt my heart going like a hammer, and took a couple of deep breaths. Jesus! I had the G3 set on automatic, and levelled at the group, thirty metres off. I could wallop them all.

  One man, the shortest in the group, walked round the other three, giving them a cursory inspection. Then he doused the lamp, and all four walked to the car.

  The moment they were rolling, I got on the radio. ‘Sierra Two. Four X-rays have collected weapons and ammunition from Black Two. Four AK 47s. Now complete in dark-green Rover 2000. Mobile northwards from my location.’

  ‘Zero Alpha,’ answered the desk. ‘Roger.’

  ‘Fuck it!’ I gasped. ‘Why didn’t we drop the bastards?’

  ‘I know. It drives you up the bloody wall.’

  Mike stood up and shook himself, as if to throw off the weight of frustration. Then he called, ‘Delta Eight. Those four X-rays – two unknown to me, but the others are Eamonn O’Reilly and Jonty Best. Over.’

  For the next half-hour all we could do was listen as the hit team moved in erratically on its target. We heard the Det cars reporting the Rover forward, from Green Five to Green Four and Green Three. From there it was only four or five hundred metres to the target, but for some reason the players veered off into open country and disappeared for twenty minutes. Then at last they were picked up again, heading back to Green Three. This time we reckoned the raid would go down within the next few seconds. But then came an unexpected twist: instead of stopping at the farmhouse, the assault vehicle went straight past. One of the intercept teams requested permission to take it out, but the head-shed refused. The desk wanted to let things develop and see what was going to happen.

  Mike and I waited tensely, wound up on full alert. I imagined all our people being in the same state – some in the farmhouse, as I’d been a few days back, some in an OP outside the house; most in cars, all poised to react. Had something spooked the players? Time and again a job collapsed when they took fright at the last moment. Maybe they’d spotted one of our cars lurking in a strange place. Maybe they’d seen something at the house itself. We listened out, expecting to hear a report from the agency monitoring CB radio, which normally caught what the players were saying to each other.

  Half an hour went by. Then suddenly somebody picked up the Rover again, incoming towards the farmhouse, apparently making another run. This time the desk decided on action, and scrambled two intercept teams to take it out before it reached the target. After a quick manoeuvre they trapped it, by the simple expedient of placing one car to block the lane ahead of it, and sending another up behind.

  Then came another twist. The trapped Rover wasn’t carrying the hit team. The two men in it were unarmed, dressed in ordinary clothes, and claimed to be on their way home from a session in the pub. A preliminary search of the car revealed no weapons. The vehicle seemed to be completely clean.

  Consternation. Was this the hit car, emptied out? Or was it a look-alike decoy? Suddenly, as I listened to the exchanges, I realized that the desk was calling me, asking again if I’d got the number of the car we’d reported.

  ‘Sierra Two, negative,’ I replied.

  The desk ordered the two men to be brought in for questioning, and the car detained for forensic examination. Was that it for the night, then?

  Not for us. It was Mike who saw the lights coming at high speed from the north.

  ‘Look out!’ he said. ‘They’re back.’

  The car came screaming down the narrow road. The driver was in either a great hurry or a great rage. He flung the Rover right-handed through the gates, roared past us and scorched to a halt with the nose of the car in the barn doorway and the headlights still on. The illumination was
so good that binoculars were more use than kite-sights. The same four men leapt out, all effing and blinding at the tops of their voices, and began to unload their weapons. One kicked the straw away from the top of the hide and lifted the cover, but they were all furious for a few moments and stood arguing.

  ‘Sierra Two,’ I reported urgently. ‘Four X-rays back at Black Two. They still have their weapons. We could smack them all. Permission to open fire. Over.’

  ‘Zero Alpha,’ the desk answered. ‘Roger. Wait one.’ Then, ‘Zero Alpha to Sierra Two. Negative – no permission. Don’t do anything. Let them go. Over.’

  ‘Sierra Two, roger.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ whispered Mike in my ear.

  Such was the commotion that until the very last moment the players didn’t realize another car had arrived. Nor did we. It must have come very quietly, maybe without headlights. All at once it was in through the gate and sliding past us, to stop behind the Rover. Two men got out, leaving the doors open, and strode towards the shemozzle in the barn. Something made me focus on the driver, a big man with a slight limp. As he advanced he called out in a deep voice, ‘What the feck’s going on here? Cunts! Get a hold of yourselves.’

  The instant he reached the light and I saw his face, I knew.

  So did Mike. ‘Fucking Farrell!’ he exclaimed. ‘There he is!’

  ‘Sierra Two,’ I called again. ‘Two more X-rays now on location. One is Declan Farrell, repeat Farrell. Request permission to fire. Over.’

  Again the answer was negative. I couldn’t believe it. I had the cross-hairs of the sight steady on the side of the bastard’s head. My finger was on the trigger. One touch, and Kath’s death would be avenged. Between the two of us, Mike and I could have dropped all six terrorists where they stood. Not one of them would even have got out of the barn.

  Then suddenly we found we had an urgent problem of our own. As I lowered my G3, I noticed Farrell’s car rock on its springs, as if someone was shifting around inside it. The car rocked again. Against the dim light I saw something leap over the back of the front seat, and out of the driver’s door came not another player, but a bloody great dog, a Rotty.

  ‘Jesus!’ I breathed. ‘Now we’re in it.’

  The blessed north wind of the day had died away, and odd puffs were coming from all directions. The dog trotted across to the front of the cottage and lifted his leg against the door-post. Then he began sniffing along the front wall. If we moved we’d be bound to attract his attention, but if we lay still he’d get us anyway. It would only be a matter of seconds before he picked up our scent.

  ‘Come on,’ I hissed at Mike, ‘we’ve got to pull out.’

  Too late. The dog stopped, lifted his head and stood staring in our direction. Then he let fly a volley of barks and lunged forward. We lay flat. He pulled up two feet away, dancing high on his toes, barking and snarling like hell.

  ‘BUSTER!’ yelled Farrell from the barn. ‘Quiet, you bastard! Come here!’

  The dog’s only response was to bark even louder. He began really doing his nut. Gobs of spit were flying out of his chops and landing on us. His barks would have wakened the dead. We were in an impossible position. If we kept still, someone would be over to see what he was going mad about (perhaps even Farrell himself – this at least could provide me with an excuse to take him out). But then again, if we shifted, the dog would go for us.

  All this went through my mind in about half a second. I tried to slide my right hand down my side to bring my knife out of its sheath, but even that slight movement was enough to trigger an attack. With a thump like a sack of cement landing, the dog was on top of us, gnashing viciously. His jaws closed on Mike’s right forearm, and he was growling thunderously. Still I wanted to get the knife into him, but the instant I moved he let go and bit again, this time Mike’s shoulder. The dog was bracing his rear legs and twitching his arse about as he got pressure on and tried to drag backwards. There was only one thing for it. I rammed the muzzle of the G3 against the dog’s ribs and put one round through his chest. The report was slightly muffled, but still there was a loud, dull boom.

  The impact of the shot lifted the creature clean off us and threw his body on to the bank, where he lay twitching, with a few last noises, half-barks, half-grunts, choking out of his mouth.

  ‘Run!’ I hissed.

  We scrambled backwards out of the ditch and stumbled into the boggy field. For a second the voices in the barn had fallen silent. Then the men began to yell. We ran as best we could, tripping over the tussocks. Through the screen of trees we saw figures pour out of the barn. A moment later there came a rattle of automatic fire, and rounds went cracking over our heads. We dropped into a hole, about fifty metres back from the ditch. In the dark we were reasonably safe. A second rifle opened up. We heard rounds smacking into the ground away to our right. Obviously the players thought we had come in from the road and were going back that way. They fired wildly, whole magazines full, in that direction.

  As soon as they stopped, we ran again, aiming for Fort Knox. In the confusion we lost our markers, and had to cast out, right and left, to find it. In the shelter of the rock bank at last, we stopped to get our breath.

  ‘How’s the arm?’

  ‘I can feel it’s bleeding, but not too bad. Hand’s working OK.’

  ‘Sierra Two,’ I called. ‘We’ve been compromised. No casualties, but we need an urgent pick-up. We’ll be at Black-Four-One five minutes from now.’

  ‘Zero Alpha,’ the desk answered. ‘Roger.’

  ‘Sierra Two. We’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest at Black Two, so I recommend all units steer clear of it.’

  Still the villains were convinced that we’d come in from the road. They were poncing down the drive with flashlights, loosing off into the dark. I thought of the purple knickers going over that wall.

  It took us about a minute to collect all our gear and destroy the OP. Once we’d recovered the ground-pegs and dragged off the wire-netting, the turf-and-grass roof collapsed in a heap, leaving little sign that anybody had been there. As a final touch, I kicked away the edges of the observation notch that we’d cut in the bank so that it would look like a natural hollow.

  Ten minutes later we were back at our dropping-off point, lurking behind a convenient stone wall. We’d hardly got into position when Pat came up on the radio to say that he was closing on the location. I acknowledged, and we emerged into the road. Almost at once we saw headlights coming up the hill, and within seconds we were safe in the back of the car, heading for home.

  EIGHT

  After that fiasco it took me three or four days to chill out. My big disappointment was not so much that the PIRA had pulled out of their operation; what pissed me off was the fact that I’d missed – or rather, been deprived of – a golden chance of settling my personal score. The whole business could have been squared away. If Mike and I had opened fire, we’d have had little trouble afterwards establishing that we’d used reasonable force; having been faced with four armed men, we would have had no difficulty in maintaining that our lives had been in jeopardy.

  The wash-up didn’t provide any clues as to why the players had quit, but it did reveal why the desk had forbidden us to shoot. We learnt that one of the four gunmen was a key tout, and that his continued existence was considered of paramount importance. Better him alive than Farrell dead – at least, that was what we were told at the time. Later, I came to wonder if that was the whole truth.

  This setback made me do some hard thinking. Farrell had lost his dog, but he probably thought Buster had saved his life. There was no way he could pinpoint the identity of the would-be assassin who’d tried to nail him, but he would certainly guess that it had been a member of the security forces. After such a close shave, he surely wouldn’t risk himself in the field again for a while. My own time in Ulster was rapidly ticking away. It followed that, if I was going to get Farrell, I must go after him on my own.

  The idea excited me, because I kn
ew how dangerous a solo mission would be. Of course I’d just had another illustration of how vital it was to work in pairs. If that dog had got hold of me on my own I could easily have ended up getting captured. The risks of a one-man operation were all too obvious. But there was something about Farrell’s arrogance that goaded me on: the way he’d yelled at his own guys as he arrived at the barn – even those few words had made him sound a real bully-boy.

  Already I’d formed the outline of a plan. I’d find out where he lived, set up an OP on his house, observe his movements in and out, and then, once I had him sussed, take him out with my secretly confiscated 9mm Luger. I’d fired so many thousands of rounds on the range that I was confident I could put a double-tap into his head from fifteen or twenty metres – and that would be the end of him. My main difficulty was to get enough time off. To find the house might take several recces; to establish the pattern of his movements would need several more. I could take the odd evening off and pretend to be socializing with my in-laws, but sooner or later I would surely get caught by some emergency – a call would go out, pulling all the guys back, and I wouldn’t be there to answer it. Instead, I’d be stuck out in the middle of some godforsaken bog, waiting for Mr Big-Boy to come home.

  The next time I visited Kath’s parents was for Christmas lunch. We had a fine meal with all the trimmings, and then the traditional handing-out of presents from under the decorated tree. Tim, being easily the youngest person present, got the job of messenger, taking each package to the right person. As long as he was the centre of attention he behaved perfectly, but later he threw a tantrum for no visible reason, and I could see he was becoming too much for his gran. I think he was reacting to the loss of his mother and the break-up of his home. Apparently these rages were becoming quite frequent. Suddenly he’d let fly with a scream and refuse to cooperate. No wonder he was getting on Meg’s nerves – and on mine.