Once A Pilgrim: a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller
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Sick Sean screamed through the traffic and turned right through a gap into Clonard Street, his mind whirling with the noise and smell of shooting and sudden fear.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ yelled Gerard, scrabbling on the floor for the Webley which had been jolted from his grasp, and ignoring the AK.
He looked over his shoulder at O’Brien. Both his hands were trying to stem the flow of blood from the gaping hole in his neck and he was gasping for air, drowning in his own blood.
Nothing would save him.
Narrowly missing a car coming out of the Clonards, Sean Casey gritted his teeth and put his foot further down, desperate to put as much distance as possible, as quickly as possible, between himself and the soldiers, so that they could torch the car and fuck off.
They might have made it, too, but for the fact that a mixed RUC/Army VCP had been set up at the far end of Clonard Gardens.
The sound of the gunfire was masked and confused by the ambient noise, but several of the soldiers and their RUC colleagues had instantly turned their heads in the direction of the Falls.
Then the screaming pitch of the Sierra’s engine confirmed that something was going down.
And now they saw the car race into the Clonards.
‘Army!’ shouted Gerard.
His brother had already seen them, and was yanking the wheel right into Odessa Street. But even as he began the turn, he knew he was in trouble. The Ford wasn’t designed to take ninety degree corners on slick, sleety roads at approaching fifty miles per hour, and as it screeched and skidded over the wet tarmac the tyres lost their grip.
The car careened into a parked truck, bounced back out into the street, and clipped the kerb on the opposite side.
Now completely out of control, it mounted the pavement and smashed through the low wall in front of one of the squat, red-brick terraced houses, burying its bonnet in a bay window.
There it sat for a few moments, engine revving madly in neutral, until Sean Casey leaned forward and switched it off.
Ciaran O’Brien had been thrown forward between the front seats. He lay still and silent, blood pulsing from his neck in eversmaller spurts.
‘Come on, Gerry,’ said Sean, scrabbling and reaching into the front foot well where the AK had ended up. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘What about Ciaran?’
‘Fuck him, he’s dead.’
‘We need to torch the car! That’s the plan!’
‘No time. Fucking come on!’
Sean Casey pushed open the driver’s door – it was buckled, so it wasn’t easy – and staggered out of the wreckage.
As he stood up, two things happened.
The first was that the front door of the neighbouring house opened, and a young woman appeared.
The second was that several of the soldiers from the VCP sprinted around the corner and started towards them.
‘In there!’ shouted Sean to his younger brother, pointing at the open doorway.
But Gerard stood motionless, pistol still in his hand, half-raised.
In one weird moment of clarity, he thought to himself: This is karma. I should not have murdered Billy Jones.
Sean stared back at the soldiers.
This was not happening. This was not how it was meant to fucking be.
He’d only ever killed unarmed men – up close, taking pleasure in it, laughing about it later. The kudos it brought him. The pints in the bar. Being someone. Bigger, harder men scared to meet his eye, for fear of what he and his pals might do to them.
This was very different.
He raised the AK.
Suddenly, it seemed to weigh a ton.
The muzzle danced.
He couldn’t hold it level.
In the small part of his brain that was still thinking rationally, he heard himself say, Why’s it so heavy?
Somewhere, he heard the snap of a round from Mick Parry’s SA80 pass close to his head, and then the whine of the ricochet.
He could see another soldier in combats…
And why the fuck do they wear camouflage in a city?
…standing, rifle raised.
Taking aim.
He’s fucking shooting at me!
He pulled the AK trigger.
Four shots, all way too high, and in that half-second the magazine ran dry.
He pulled it again.
Heard the dead man’s click.
Started to shout, ‘No, wait!’
John Carr stood ramrod straight, SA80 aimed, like he was on the range at Sennybridge.
In the split second before he gently squeezed the trigger, he recognised the man in his sights from one of the many briefings he’d attended.
Sick Sean.
An evil man.
Christmas and his birthday, rolled into one.
Casey’s brain was telling him to get down, but he was paralysed by fear, the same fear which now emptied his bladder.
Carr’s round took him just below the nose on his upper lip, snapping his head back like he’d been smashed in the face with a steam hammer. It left only a small, cauterised entry wound, but erupted out of the back of his skull, taking teeth and brains and blood with it.
Stone dead, he hit the ground, the AK flying from his grasp and clattering to the pavement feet away.
Almost simultaneously, a shot from Mick Parry hit Gerard Casey in the shoulder, spinning him round and back and down to the ground.
He lay there, winded, yelping, for a moment or two, staring at the body of his older brother.
Then, horrified, and powered by adrenalin and terror, he scrambled to his feet, leaving the Webley on the pavement.
Bent double, not stopping to look at Sean, he half-rolled, half-fell past the screaming woman and into her house.
He was standing, wild-eyed in the living room, bright red blood pulsing from his wound, his brain overloaded with information and questions, when two soldiers burst in.
Mick Parry and John Carr.
The three men stood looking at each other, panting – for a half-second, no more.
Then Carr stepped forward and stabbed Gerard Casey’s cheek with the barrel of his rifle, as if it was bayonet practice, breaking his cheekbone and putting him straight down onto the brown carpet.
The soldiers stood over the young shooter, rifles pointed at his chest.
Blood was still streaming from his wound; it would later transpire his carotid and subclavian arteries had been nicked by the SA80 round.
His eyes were vague and unfocused.
Parry bent down and slapped his face. ‘Wakey wakey,’ he said, with a grin. ‘It’s Para Reg time!’
Gerard Casey groaned.
‘We’ve just killed your mate,’ said Parry. ‘Shot the wanker in the face.’
‘My brother,’ moaned the stricken man. ‘No.’
He half-coughed, half-sobbed. A guttural sound.
‘Ambulance,’ he said, thickly. ‘Please. It hurts.’
He closed his eyes, and a vivid image swam through his mind of Sean’s head disintegrating.
He vomited and started choking on the bitter bile.
The housewife had come in, hand to her mouth in horror, and now she raised the receiver on the telephone.
‘You put that fucker down,’ said Parry, getting up and pushing her roughly into the darkened kitchen.
Carr got down, his left knee in Gerard Casey’s blood, and pulled a first field dressing from his webbing.
Ripped open the boiler suit and tore the sodden T-shirt underneath it apart.
The wound was pulsing red.
He lifted the injured man slightly and felt at the back.
No exit wound.
Young Casey’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head, and his breathing was becoming laboured and irregular.
Carr was applying the field dressing onto the wound on his collarbone when Parry reappeared.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he said. ‘We’re not saving this cunt’s life, John.’
‘We’re better than them,’ said Carr, through gritted teeth. ‘He needs an ambulance.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Parry. He squatted down next to Casey, pulled off the dressing and threw it across the room. ‘Three of my mates were killed at Mayobridge the other day by your mob, pal,’ he said to the groaning man. ‘Young lads, blown to pieces by cowards. If you think I’m calling yous a fucking ambo you must be confusing me with somebody who gives a shit.’
The blood was spurting more slowly, now, so Parry pressed his hand on Casey’s chest, making it flow quicker.
‘How does that feel?’ he said. ‘Does it sting a bit?’
‘He’s going tae bleed out, Mick,’ said Carr.
‘Yeah,’ said Parry. ‘That’s the general idea.’
Just then, they heard a stifled sob behind them, and turned to see the homeowner standing in the kitchen doorway, hands over her mouth.
‘Get her back through there, and tell her to fucking stay there,’ said Parry, to Carr. ‘Then get outside and tell the boss I’m giving this wanker first aid.’
Carr hesitated for a moment.
Then ushered the sobbing woman out of the room and into her kitchen, and left the house to do as he was told.
An ambulance was finally called ten minutes later.
By that time, Gerard Casey was unconscious.
By the time it arrived he was dead.
18.
BILLY JONES SENIOR sat in the Long Bar on the Shankill Road, surrounded by a gang of his shaven-headed cronies.
The TV in the top corner of the pub was on about some shooting in central Belfast, but he paid it no particular mind. He was sipping his whisky chaser and trying to decide between another pint of Carling or a move on to Strongbow, when two uniformed RUC men walked in, faces nervous, flat caps in their hands.
Someone walked hurriedly out of the bar, head down, and through the open doorway Billy briefly saw flashing blue lights and the camouflaged tunics of a group of soldiers.
The RUC men’s eyes swept the room and settled on him.
They walked towards his table.
‘Evening, Billy,’ said one of them, respectfully. ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you. Can we have a word in private, please?’
Billy Jones looked up at them with the dead gaze of a reptile. ‘Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of the boys,’ he said. ‘We’ve no secrets here.’
‘Only, we tried your house, Billy,’ said the officer. ‘Couldn’t get an answer, couldn’t find your wife, so… Well, we thought you’d be in here.’
‘Spying on me, is it?’ he said with a mocking grin, and a suck on his teeth. He shook his head, almost sadly. ‘You fucking peeler bastards.’
‘Billy, I really think it would be best in private.’
‘Spit it out.’
The two officers looked at each other. The one doing the talking sighed.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Have it your way. It’s about your son. Billy Junior.’ His eyes flicked up at the TV, which was showing a car park, now brightly lit and crawling with police. ‘He’s the one that was killed tonight.’
Billy looked at him. Not a flicker of emotion.
He casually picked up his Bells and threw it back.
‘Is that yous?’ he said, with a grimace at the heat of the spirit. ‘Are yous done?’
‘Aye.’
‘Then get the fuck out,’ he shouted. ‘Go on. Fuck off!’
‘We’re sorry, Mr Jones, our condolences, we…’
‘Fuck off, you fucking wankers!’
The two constables turned on their heels and walked away, heads down, hands resting lightly on their sidearms, Billy Jones’ eyes burning into their backs.
When the door was shut, the men at the table exchanged looks.
‘Billy,’ said one. ‘I’m sorry. He was a good kid.’
Billy Jones Senior looked at him in disgust. ‘You what? He was a fucking embarrassment, so he was, and you know it. If you can’t speak the fucking truth to me, you’re no fucking good to me. You can get the fuck out as well.’
‘Yes, Billy,’ said the man, and hurried out without finishing his drink or putting on his coat.
Jones looked up at the bar. A man in a blue Rangers shirt put down his pint, walked casually over, and bent his head.
‘You and Tam McDonald,’ whispered Billy Jones Senior, hoarsely. ‘You get fucking out there tonight and kill two fucking Catholics. Any fuckers, I don’t care, but it better be on the news first thing in the morning. Cut their throats.’
The man nodded, and walked out of the bar leaving half a pint on the counter.
Billy sat back, looked at his cronies and belched. ‘I reckon I’ll go on the Strongbow now, boys,’ he said. ‘Davey, you’re in the chair.’
19.
PAT CASEY SAT IN HIS usual seat in the corner of The Volunteer on the Falls Road and tried to look vaguely interested as another greasy sycophant paid his respects and offered to buy him a pint.
The eldest of the three Casey brothers, it was common knowledge that Patrick was a senior figure in the Belfast Brigade command structure.
This being one of Belfast PIRA’s favourite pubs, there wasn’t a man alive could drink the beer Pat Casey was offered on an average night.
There probably wasn’t the beer in the bar to make good on all the offers.
He waved the guy away with a half-smile, keeping his eye on wee Roslyn McCabe as she sat at the bar sucking down something with a pink umbrella in it.
Fuck, but she was a great wee ride, all legs and arse in that tight little white miniskirt.
She smiled at him, and he just stared back at her.
He’d fucked her in the alley round the back of the bar last week, and he’d a mind to do it again tonight.
See how things go, eh.
Dirty wee whore. Not marrying material, but...
Pat Casey’s status might have been common knowledge, but proving who he was and what he’d done, to the satisfaction of a court, was a very different matter. He was a clever man who’d never been caught and who seldom got his hands dirty these days. Not that he was frightened to: he’d done his time as a foot soldier, and had earned the nickname ‘The Brain Surgeon’ for his close quarter assassinations.
Breathing down your neck, only ever one round to the head – that was how he liked it.
But that was in the past. Violence was a big tool in the box, but the real means to the Republican end was political, not military. Pat had the gift of the gab, he could turn on the charm if required, and he had no criminal record. Those in the highest echelons had identified him as a good man to have in place when the bloodshed eventually forced the hands of the Brits.
He tore his gaze away from Roslyn’s legs and looked at his watch. Sean and Gerry should have been here by now, but they were probably taking it nice and careful. He felt a slight sense of unease, but pushed it away. Sure, they’d be in any minute, and he’d be toasting them with the rest of the fellas.
He thought about his brothers.
Sean was an experienced lad but too hot-headed and unpredictable, and Pat had little doubt that one day he’d make a martyr of himself.
But Gerry – Gerry was smart, and cautious.
A bit young, was all. All he needed was experience. Once he had that, the youngest of the three Casey brothers looked to Pat to have the potential to become a significant player.
Pat had personally sanctioned the 1st Battalion operation on Billy Jones Jnr. This was west Belfast, not the Wild West – you didn’t just rock up and kill people willy-nilly, there were procedures and rules, and a strict code of conduct. Junior men thought up jobs and brought them to the table. Senior men turned most of them down as impractical, or too dangerous, or too expensive, and gave a few the green light. Sean had brought up Billy and suggested Gerry as the shooter, and, after a little thought, Pat had agreed to the killing.
It went without saying that he’d have much preferred to have hit Billy Senior, but that cunt was too wily to get caught out. Young Billy would fit fine, would send the right message to the prod bastards.
And then, as he’d been driven over to The Volunteer a couple of hours earlier, the BBC radio news bulletin had been full of a shooting in the city centre near the Europa.
An unidentified male killed by unknown assassins.
Of course, he’d known what the craic was, and he’d felt elated.
He was looking forward to shaking young Gerry’s hand, and seeing the surprise and pride on his face. It wasn’t common practice for senior figures to go round back-slapping the ASU members, and it would all have to be very unofficial, but, sure, this was his younger brother. To congratulate him in person, and bring him into the Brigade… Well, it was a good day for the Casey family.
He threw back half his pint and winked at Rosyln. She tried her best to look demure, but she didn’t have it in her. Later…
He noticed the clock over the bar behind the young woman.
Now they were late.
What the hell were they playing at?
His eye wandered round the bar, and it landed on the TV in the opposite corner.
And he went cold all over.
A reporter was standing in the darkness of the Lower Falls, his camera crew’s lights showing a red Ford Sierra.
Crashed into a wall.
‘Jimmy,’ shouted Pat, looking briefly at the barman. ‘Shut the fucking music off and turn that up, will you.’
The barman complied as if his life depended on the speed of his movements.
‘On the record, the police are staying tight-lipped,’ the reporter was saying, ‘but they believe the men may have carried out that earlier shooting in the city centre. It was on their way back into west Belfast that they were identified by an Army patrol. They ended up here in the Clonards, where all three men were killed by the security forces. At this stage…’
Pat Casey stood up, knocking over the remains of his pint, and the chair he’d been sitting on.
He shook his head, feeling nauseous.
Surely fucking not.
Not bothering to put on his coat, he hurried from the bar, which was suddenly quiet, a sea of eyes and gaping mouths.
He passed out onto the street, through the security cage placed there to delay unwanted visitors, and straight towards his waiting driver. The engine was running by the time he reached the car.
‘The Clonards, Paulie,’ he said.
‘What is it, Pat?’ said the driver.
‘I think my brothers are dead. And Ciaran O’Brien. Murdering Brit bastards.’
‘Mother of God, Pat,’ said Paulie, crossing himself. ‘I am so fucking sorry.’
‘Just drive.’
20.
THE CLONARDS WAS CLOSED off by a number of Army and RUC vehicles.
Blue strobe lighting bounced off the houses.
Soldiers, rifles at the ready, stood on a cordon and watched a large crowd of locals from dark eyes under helmets.
There were shouts of abuse, and every now and then someone lobbed a stone from the back of the crowd.
Pat Casey got out of the car and approached the police cordon. He could see forensic officers in white suits clearing the area.
He approached the first RUC man he saw and said, ‘Who’s in fucking charge? Get him over here.’
The constable walked over to a detective inspector and pointed back towards Pat.
The DI walked casually over. ‘Good evening, Mr Casey,’ he said, with a broad smile. ‘And how can I help you?’
‘Someone told me that’s my brothers dead there,’ spat Pat. ‘I want to fucking know.’
‘That’s interesting, Mr Casey,’ said the detective. ‘No names have been released yet, so why would you think it might be your brothers?’
‘Don’t get fucking smart with me, you bastard. I want to know.’
The DI looked at him for a moment. Then he said, ‘Sure, why don’t you come with me, Mr Casey?’
He lifted the tape, and Pat ducked under.
The two men walked to the wrecked Sierra.
‘I don’t know if you recognise this man?’ said the detective, when they reached the vehicle.
Sean Casey lay on the ground, his ruined head in a pool of blood and pulp, sightless eyes staring into the drizzle of the night.
‘Fuck me,’ said Pat Casey.
‘Can you positively identify this individual as your brother, Mr Casey?’
‘You know full well that’s Sean, you fucking cunt.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the detective inspector, allowing a look of great sorrow to settle on his face. ‘May I say on behalf of the Royal Ulster Constabulary that I am terribly sorry for your loss, sir.’
‘Where’s Gerry?’
‘Ah, yes. We do have two more bodies. If you could help us with identification that would be grand.’
‘Show me, you bastard.’
The inspector shone his torch into the car. Ciaran O’Brien’s bloodstained corpse lay wedged between the front seats.
‘Now, is that your Gerard?’
Pat Casey looked at the police officer. ‘If you don’t stop fucking me around, I swear…’
‘Please calm down, Mr Casey,’ said the inspector, ‘or I shall have to have you arrested. We do have one further individual dead in that house there, but I’m afraid I can’t let you go in there because it’s a potential crime scene. If you’d like to hang around the body will be moved shortly, so you can see it then.’
‘You fucking…’ said Casey. ‘Someone’ll pay for this.’
The detective smirked. ‘It does look as though someone’s already paid for something tonight, Pat.’
Casey put his face close to the police officer’s. ‘What did you say?’ he growled.
The detective stared back at him, poker-faced. He was a veteran of nearly twenty years of this shit, and he was not easily intimidated. When he’d woken up that morning his life had been in danger, and when he went to sleep that night nothing would have changed. He’d lost several colleagues to the likes of Casey, and would quite cheerfully have pulled out his sidearm and shot him in the face there and then.
‘What did I say?’ he said. ‘What I said, Pat, was that Gerard died crying and begging for his life. Three-nil to the Parachute Regiment, I believe. I’m going to have a few drams the night toasting this lot into hell. Now, fuck off out my sight. And pass my condolences to your mother. When the old cow’s sober, mind.’
Pat tried to stare him down, but the policeman just winked at him.
‘You’re a dead man walking.’
‘We’re all dead, Pat, even you. It’s just the when bit that we don’t know.’ He chuckled. ‘Ask your brothers.’
‘You’re a dead man. Whoever did this is a dead man. As long as I live.’
‘You take care now, Pat, you hear?’ said the detective. ‘Your poor ma wouldn’t want to lose all her boys in one night, would she?’
Casey turned on his heel and walked away, passing within twenty feet of Mick Parry and John Carr, who were now part of the cordon securing the area.
Back in his car, he looked at Paulie the driver.
‘They’re all dead,’ he said. ‘Sean, Ciaran, Gerard. All of them head-jobbed. Fucking murdered by the SAS.’
‘Scum, Pat,’ said Paulie. ‘Scum. They don’t play by the rules. It’s that shoot-to-kill, that’s what it is fucking is. That bitch Thatcher. It’s her death squads.’
Pat Casey clenched his fists so hard that his nails nearly drew blood from his palms.
‘As God is my fucking witness,’ he said, ‘I swear I’ll find the fuckers that did this. If it takes me fifty years I will have their fucking lives.’
PART THREE
LONDON MODERN DAY
21.
JOHN CARR WOKE up with a thick head, a pretty blonde he didn’t know, and a bad feeling about the day ahead.
The clock radio said it was just after 5am, and he knew it had been gone 2am when he’d finally got to sleep, thanks to the attentions of the girl snoring gently next to him.
He lay there for a moment, silently cursing. Perhaps the only thing he regretted about his time in the SAS was that it had ruined his sleep patterns. Years of raids carried out in the wee small hours will do that to you.