JAMES DEEGAN MC spent five years in the Parachute Regiment, and seventeen years in the SAS.

He served for most of that time in a Sabre Squadron, from Trooper to Squadron Sergeant Major, and saw almost continuous service on operations in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. He fought in both Gulf Wars, and was on both occasions amongst the first Coalition soldiers to cross the border into Iraq. He was twice decorated for gallantry and, on his retirement from the Special Air Service, as a Regimental Sergeant Major, he was described by his commanding officer as ‘one of the most operationally-experienced SAS men of his era’.

He now works in the security industry, in some of the world’s most hostile and challenging environments.

COPYRIGHT

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © James Deegan 2018

James Deegan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008229498

TO ALL THE BRAVE MEN I HAVE KNOWN WHO WILL NOT SEE OLD AGE. THEY ACCEPTED THE RISKS, STEPPED INTO THE BREACH, AND PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE.

UTRINQUE PARATUSWHO DARES WINS

John Carr – CV

Personal

Born:
Edinburgh, Midlothian

Parents:
Father - James John Carr (deceased)Mother – Mary Margaret Carr

Siblings:
Brother – Alex Mark Carr (younger) KIAAfghanistan 2006Sister – Louise Mary Carr (older)

Addresses:
Redacted, REDACTED, Hereford, HerefordshireXX redcated st, Redacted redacted, London

Physical Description

Height:
6ft 2in (187cm)

Weight:
15st 6lb (95.5 kg)

Hair:
Dark

Eyes:
Blue

Distinguishing marks:

Extensive tattoos to upper body (chest and back) and arms2.5in (6.35cm) inverted semicircular scar to chin (grenade shrapnel from action in redacted)

Military Career

Units :
Third Battalion The Parachute Regiment22nd Special Air Service Regiment

Secondments:

Special Reconnaissance RegimentOperational Detachment Delta xxxxxxx

Operational Theatres deployed:

Northern Ireland multiple deploymentsIraq – two Gulf Wars and Counter-Insurgency campaignAfghanistan – Operation redactedBalkans – Bosnia, Kosovo, redacted, redact.Africa – Kenya, redact, redact, redact, redact.Middle East – Yemen, redacted, redact.Latin America – redact, redacted.Far East – Brunei, redact.

Specialist Infiltration skills: Mobility/Air

Specialist Military skills:

SniperDemolitionsMedicCommunicationsJungle Warfare InstructorCounter Insurgency ExpertClose-Quarter BattleHostage NegotiatorJTACMortarsSurveillance – Technical and Physical

Languages:
Spanish – advancedSerbo Croat – advancedArabic – fluent

Specialist skills: Helicopter Pilot (civilian)

Honours and Awards:

MBE – Northern IrelandMilitary Cross – awarded for gallantry in Classified AreaBar to Military Cross – awarded for gallantry in Classified AreaMention in Despatches – Classified Area

Foreign award: Silver Star (US) – awarded for gallantry in redacted.

Security Clearances Held: Top Secret

Total length of Military Service: 22 years

Retiring Rank: Warrant Officer Class 2 (Squadron Sergeant Major)

Current Occupation: Head of UK Security to Konstantin Avilov

Personal data:

Status:
Divorced

Children:
Son – George (serving soldier Parachute Regiment)Daughter - Alice (first year of A levels)

Hobbies:
Mixed Martial Arts

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION.

NONE OF THE EVENTS DESCRIBED HAPPENED, AND NONE OF THE CHARACTERS CONTAINED IN THE NARRATIVE ARE BASED ON ANY PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, UNLESS EXPRESSLY STATED.

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a little further; it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow

Across that angry or that glimmering sea

From The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to

Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913)

JAMES ELROY FLECKER (1884-1915)

These words are inscribed on the clock tower at Stirling Lines,

Hereford, along with the names of those members of the

Special Air Service who have fallen whilst serving.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

Part One: Baghdad, Iraq

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Part Two: Belfast, Northern Ireland Twenty Years Earlier

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.

Chapter 16.

Chapter 17.

Chapter 18.

Chapter 19.

Chapter 20.

Part Three: London Modern Day

Chapter 21.

Chapter 22.

Chapter 23.

Chapter 24.

Chapter 25.

Chapter 26.

Chapter 27.

Chapter 28.

Chapter 29.

Chapter 30.

Chapter 31.

Chapter 32.

Chapter 33.

Chapter 34.

Chapter 35.

Chapter 36.

Chapter 37.

Chapter 38.

Chapter 39.

Chapter 40.

Chapter 41.

Chapter 42.

Chapter 43.

Chapter 44.

Chapter 45.

Chapter 46.

Chapter 47.

Chapter 48.

Chapter 49.

Chapter 50.

Chapter 51.

Chapter 52.

Chapter 53.

Chapter 54.

Chapter 55.

Chapter 56.

Chapter 57.

Chapter 58.

Chapter 59.

Chapter 60.

Chapter 61.

Chapter 62.

Chapter 63.

Chapter 64.

Chapter 65.

Chapter 66.

Chapter 67.

Chapter 68.

Chapter 69.

Chapter 70.

Chapter 71.

Chapter 72.

Chapter 73.

Chapter 74.

Chapter 75.

Chapter 76.

Chapter 77.

Chapter 78.

Chapter 79.

Chapter 80.

Chapter 81.

Chapter 82.

Chapter 83.

Chapter 84.

Chapter 85.

Chapter 86.

Chapter 87.

Chapter 88.

Chapter 89.

Chapter 90.

Chapter 91.

Chapter 92.

Chapter 93.

Chapter 94.

Chapter 95.

Chapter 96.

Chapter 97.

Chapter 98.

Chapter 99.

Chapter 100.

Chapter 101.

Chapter 102.

Chapter 103.

Chapter 104.

Chapter 105.

Chapter 106.

Chapter 107.

Chapter 108.

Chapter 109.

Chapter 110.

Chapter 111.

Chapter 112.

Chapter 113.

Chapter 114.

Chapter 115.

Chapter 116.

Chapter 117.

Chapter 118.

Chapter 119.

Chapter 120.

Chapter 121.

Chapter 122.

Chapter 123.

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

PART ONE

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

1.

SERGEANT MAJOR John Carr stood in the low light, fighting unfamiliar emotions and watching his blokes go through their final equipment checks.

Even at this hour, the air was brutally hot and humid, and it stank of open sewers, old garbage fires, and diesel fumes from the idling vehicles.

Foul in his nostrils as it was, he inhaled deeply: to Carr, it smelled like nothing on earth. He was going to miss it.

Tonight would see yet another operation against yet another high value target – this one a man codenamed ‘Joker’.

Joker: Sufyan bin Ahmed, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and now the leader of The Obedient Servants, a vicious Al Qaeda-in-Iraq cell responsible for multiple atrocities and deaths.

Another night, another nasty bastard.

The men of 22 SAS and Task Force Dagger had been at this for a long time now, year after year spent hunting and killing the murderous jihadists who had turned Iraq into a charnel house, slick with blood. Most of the action took place close enough to smell the other man’s breath, and sweat, and fear, in dark, dank rooms in backstreet houses and compounds, where the enemy holed up to make his stand.

With this tour drawing to its end, Carr’s Squadron had been lucky, with only a couple of soldiers wounded and none killed. They were facing a foe who prayed for his own, glorious death, and that presented a very particular challenge. But it was one which the men from Hereford were more than equipped to meet: their phenomenal skill at close-quarter battle, and their proficiency in the art of room combat, had changed the course of the campaign, and the flow of volunteers was drying up. The streets of the Iraqi capital might be teeming with those who loudly proclaimed their desire for martyrdom; few actually stepped up.

Squadron Quarter Master Sergeant Geordie Skelton wandered over, one giant fist wrapped around a hot brew, despite the thirty-five degree heat.

He and John Carr had passed Selection together, and had gone on to serve in every theatre to which the SAS had been committed during the nineteen years they had spent at the tip of the spear. Carr would have stepped through the gates of hell with Geordie by his side, and the feeling was mutual.

‘What’s on your mind, buddy?’ said Skelton, slurping tea.

‘Getting out,’ said Carr, quietly. Absent-mindedly, he rubbed his chin, rough with stubble, and felt the livid, crescent moon scar under his lower lip. A few yards away, a couple of young troopers cracked up at something a third had said. He envied them: they had years of service ahead of them. ‘Knowing I’ll never do this again,’ he said. ‘Knowing it’s all over.’

‘Fuck me,’ said Skelton, with a laugh. ‘That’s another day. Let’s get this one done first, eh?’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Carr. ‘Feeling sorry for myself. Give us a swig of that brew.’

Skelton handed over the mug, and Carr took a big mouthful of the strong, sweet tea before handing it back.

‘Knowing my luck I’ll get clipped tonight,’ he said, with a rueful half-grin.

‘Howay, man,’ said Skelton. ‘What the fuck’s up with you? Twenty years of dickheads shooting at you, and you’ve never had a scratch, bar that fucking Action Man scar on your chin. And even that’s just made yous a fanny magnet. Your luck, you’d jump into a barrel of shite and come out clean.’

‘Aye,’ said Carr. ‘I’m only kidding. If either of us get clipped it’s all went south, that’s for sure.’

That was true: at their level of seniority, John Carr and Geordie Skelton would not even be entering the target building. Grizzled old men like them would hang around at the back with the Squadron HQ element, directing the whole thing, while the young guys did the business.

The building in question was a pale grey, two-storey villa to the south of Masafi Street, in the hard-core Sunni suburb of Dora, on the southern bank of the meandering Tigris. Two hours ago, Carr had delivered the briefing – the last he would ever give – and had watched the blokes poring over the aerial photographs of the area, until every man-jack of them knew the place intimately. Each of the multiple assault teams had gone over its individual tasks, step-by-step, ensuring that they knew exactly which rooms each of them would clear, who would go through which door, what their limit of exploitation would be…

Nothing was left to chance: that was the only way to make sure – or as sure as possible – that you walked back out of the room you’d breached.

As ever, the intelligence picture was imperfect. The informant – who had been promised a lot of US dollars, a new ID and six seats on a US Air Force Globemaster out of Baghdad for himself and his family – was confident that Joker would be at the premises this evening, preparing a giant improvised explosive device for an attack on civilians in the central Shia district of Sadr City. What he could not say for sure was how many of Joker’s lieutenants and underlings would be there.

Carr thought back to the conversation he’d had with the spook who had provided the intelligence for tonight’s target.

‘We want them alive,’ the spook had said, looking down his nose at the thickset Scot – a difficult thing to do, given that Carr was a good six inches taller than he. ‘Especially Joker.’

Carr had shrugged. ‘Is that so?’ he’d said, with a smile. ‘You cannae even tell me what we’re up against.’

‘It’s very important,’ the intelligence officer had said.

‘Really?’ Carr had said. ‘Well, you’ll get him in whatever state he comes out of that building.’

And he’d stared directly into the eyes of the spook, until the man had been forced to look away. ‘But we need…’ he’d said, almost plaintively.

‘What you need is to know what it’s like to step into a room where there’s an armed man trying to kill you. When you know that, then you’ll understand why that’s not an order I’ll be giving my men.’

Truth was, Carr didn’t have a whole lot of respect for the intelligence community: a first in Politics from Cambridge and a nice, soft pair of hands were not much use out here in the nightmarish killing zones of Baghdad, and this particular miscreant was even worse than most of them. Carr had taken an instant dislike to the superior little fucker – not that the answer would have been any different with a spook he did like.

‘One chance,’ he’d said, finally. ‘He’ll get one fucking chance, and that’s if he’s lying face down on the floor when my guys go in. If not, you get him in whatever state he comes out.’

Geordie Skelton threw away the dregs of his tea.

‘Look on the bright side,’ he said, to Carr. ‘The Squadron’ll run a damned sight better once I’m in charge.’

Carr chuckled: Skelton was due to replace him as Sergeant Major at the end of the tour.

‘I might come back and see how you’re getting on,’ he said. ‘If I fancy a laugh.’

He looked at his watch.

01:15 hrs.

Fifteen minutes until they rolled out of the gate of the FOB on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, which was home to TF Dagger.

‘Time to go, Geordie,’ he said. ‘Mount up.’

Geordie Skelton grinned and stepped up into his vehicle, which would bring up the rear of the mobile column. Carr walked down the line, telling each vehicle commander in turn to mount up, until he reached the front. The plan called for Carr to lead the blokes to the lay-up position, from where the Squadron would move the final couple of hundred metres onto the target on foot. He would remain at the rear with Geordie and his driver, the OC, a signaller and his own driver, a young Brummie trooper called ‘Wayne’ Rooney.

Rooney had joined the Squadron from The Rifles six months earlier, and he was already a promising blade. He’d looked momentarily downcast when Carr had told him he was missing out on the assault.

‘Everyone has to step out to work with the HQ now and then, Wayne,’ Carr had said. ‘Your turn tonight.’

Rooney was already in his seat, and Carr winked at him as he climbed aboard.

‘Alright, son,’ he said. ‘Ready to roll?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Rooney, not yet comfortable with calling his Sergeant Major by his first name. The informality of the SAS, when compared with the line infantry, could be disconcerting at first.

Carr thought about correcting him but decided against, on the basis that it might worsen the young trooper’s discomfort. Instead, he smiled, strapped on his Kevlar helmet, and grabbed his Diemaco C7 – a Special Forces M4 variant fitted with a heavy duty barrel, night-sight, and a flash suppressor.

The vehicle moved forward, and each vehicle behind followed on.

The time to target was twenty minutes.

They picked their way north, past shuttered shops, burned-out cars, and fire-gutted houses. Before the war, Dora had been a predominantly Assyrian Christian neighbourhood, but in the chaos of the early occupation the lunatic fringe had moved in and begun a programme of religious cleansing. It seemed like every third house was daubed with symbols which had been used to identify their occupants as Shia, or Christian, or Mandaeists – whatever they were.

The streets were deserted – you had to be crazy to be out and about at this time of night. But that meant that anyone on the streets was crazy, so the men manned their vehicle-mounted weapons and scanned the route for enemy activity as they progressed to the target area.

As they passed the bloated corpse of a donkey, Carr looked at his map with the route marked on it.

‘Next left, Wayne,’ he said, glancing at the young Brummie.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Rooney.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Carr, under his breath. He shook his head and grinned: it was too far back to remember, but he’d probably been just as bad himself as a new trooper.

Twenty minutes after leaving the FOB, the vehicles pulled over and went static at the LUP.

The teams all dismounted and shook out into the order of march, ready to move towards the target, each man going down on one knee and scanning the immediate area for any threat, the pitch black turning green in their night vision.

Carr walked over to Geordie and the Squadron Commander for a final brief.

Everything was good, no issues.

Carr keyed his radio mike, and sent one transmission. ‘All teams, move to final assault positions.’

The men started to go forwards slowly towards the target. It was only two hundred metres, but it took a full ten minutes, moving quietly, carefully: they’d been in Dora enough times to know that the locals would react aggressively as soon as they worked out what was going on. Every man in the area owned a gun, and most would relish the chance to have a pop. They’d all wake up as soon as the explosive charges effected the breaches, but there was no sense in giving them a head start.

Eventually, the assault teams were at their final positions, and awaiting the radio transmission for the show to commence.

Carr carried out a check on the comms to confirm that everyone was ready to go.

All team commanders confirmed.

Carr gave the OC – Evan Forrest – a thumbs-up.

Forrest keyed the pressel on his radio and uttered the words which had launched a thousand assaults.

‘Standby, standby… Go!’

There were two deafening explosions, instantly followed by the wailing of car alarms activated by the pressure wave from the breach charges, and the assault teams were in.

From where Carr stood, he could hear the immediate crackle of small arms fire coming from inside the villa.

He fought the temptation to ask questions on the radio, to find out what was going on; the teams had to be allowed to get on with their task with no interruption.

Instead, he turned to speak to Evan Forrest, and it was at that moment that gunfire erupted from a building directly opposite the target.

It was wild and high, and the assault team at whom it was directed were able to take cover inside the walled compound of the grey villa.

Carr watched as they began returning fire.

‘Fucking amateur,’ said Geordie, and he was right – the gunman had fired two long bursts, the first of which had illuminated his position in one of the upstairs rooms, the second of which confirmed he had not changed his position.

But this was still very much not ideal: a number of Carr’s men were now engaged in a firefight inside and outside the target.

He made a quick decision. The team outside was Delta 18 Charlie, led by Steve Smith. Steve was a good man, and full of balls, and that meant that in a matter of moments he’d be over the wall and rushing across the street to take out the shooter.

That was not the best way to deal with this threat.

Carr keyed his mike. ‘Steve, it’s John,’ he said, calmly. ‘Stay put, mate, and keep suppressing that house. We’re in a blind spot to them so I’m going in round the back. Okay?’

Smith’s reply came back a moment later. ‘Okay, John, got it. I think there’s at least three shooters in there.’

‘Noted, mate,’ said Carr. ‘Moving shortly.’

He turned to the small group he was with. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Evan, you stay here with the scaley and Jedd, okay? Me, Wayne and Geordie are going to take them fuckers out.’

The OC nodded.

‘You watch your back round here, Evan,’ said Carr. ‘Geordie, ready? Wayne, ready?’

Rooney nodded. ‘Ready, John,’ he said, the effort to use Carr’s first name written all over his face.

Carr grinned. ‘Good man. Right, let’s go.’ He pressed his transmit button. ‘Moving, Steve.’

Smith acknowledged.

Carr led Geordie Skelton and Wayne Rooney into the alley behind the shooters’ house, until they were level with it. As they reached a rear gate, in the shadow of an eight-foot back wall, he stopped.

A sound, from the other side of the wall – low voices, and the click-clack of weapons being cocked.

Carr raised his hand to stop Geordie, and put his finger to his lips. Wayne immediately took a knee and turned to cover their rear.

Carr moved forward and looked through the gate.

He saw four men, one of them placing an RPG7 warhead into its launcher, the others peering cautiously around the side of the building towards the target house where the assault teams were still engaged.

Carr looked back towards Geordie.

Gave a thumbs down – enemy – and held up four fingers.

Geordie nodded.

Carr removed a fragmentation grenade from his assault vest and showed it to Geordie, who nodded back and immediately brought up his weapon to cover him. Noiselessly, Carr removed the pin and casually lobbed the grenade over the wall, and moved back into cover.

In the darkness, and amidst the cacophony from the firefight, the men neither saw nor heard the grenade land.

Three seconds later it detonated, partially eviscerating the three to the side and leaving them moaning and writhing on the ground. Carr stepped through the gate, followed closely by Geordie. The RPG man turned, seeing only black shapes – though Carr saw him well enough, and saw his look of utter surprise – and opened his mouth to say something.

Carr placed the barrel of his weapon into the centre of the man’s face and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash illuminated his head as it exploded from the impact of the high velocity round, and Carr was turning and moving before the body hit the floor.

Geordie took care of the three on the ground and then they moved quickly to the back door of the house, ready to make entry.

As they reached it, a burst of gunfire erupted from the window above, followed by shouting.

Carr turned: Wayne Rooney had been following them through the gate, and had taken rounds directly into the chest and face; his body armour had absorbed the impact to his chest, but a round had just clipped his right temple. It might have been survivable, ironically, if it hadn’t been for his helmet. As it was, the bullet had bounced around inside the Kevlar, ricocheting through his brain and making mincemeat of it. An inch to the left and things would have been different.

*

But shit happens.

The temptation was to run to help him, but that would have been suicidal, and pointless: Carr knew the young trooper was dead before he hit the ground.

The only thing to do now was get into the house and kill everyone inside.

Cursing, he opened the door.

He and Geordie stepped into a darkened kitchen, and paused to listen. They could hear some movement upstairs, but nothing in the immediate vicinity. While Geordie covered an open doorway which led into a hall, Carr keyed his mike and transmitted. ‘Steve, it’s John. We’re in the downstairs of the house. Make sure no-one fires into the downstairs, okay?’

He listened for a response.

Nothing.

He repeated the transmission.

This time it was acknowledged.

With rounds smacking into the upper floor, and rapid AK fire being returned, the two men quickly cleared the lower floor of the building.

Carr got on the net again. ‘Steve,’ he said, ‘Downstairs clear. We’re moving upstairs. Stop firing.’

‘Okay, John.’

Carefully, John Carr and Geordie Skelton headed up the marble staircase. They cleared the rear rooms of the house – whoever had shot Wayne Rooney had obviously returned to the front – and came to the final two doors, which faced the target building.

Both doors were closed.

Carr pointed at the first and held up one finger.

Geordie understood that he was going to be the first through the door.

He nodded and took up position.

Carr pressed the door handle and pushed it open.

Geordie stepped through.

Directly in front of him, an insurgent began to turn, lifting an AK47 and swinging it around.

Geordie fired two quick shots into his face, and the man was punched backwards and straight out of the open window.

To the right, a second insurgent turned to engage the SAS man, who beat him to the shot and pulled his trigger…

Nothing.

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

‘Shit,’ screamed Geordie. ‘Stoppage!’

He began to drop into the kneeling position, reaching for his pistol, knowing that he would not have time to draw it and take out the threat, knowing also that Carr would hear and respond.

The big Tynesider felt the impact of the round in his mid-thigh at the same moment that he heard the report of Carr’s weapon sounding over his head.

The shooter was flung backwards against the wall; just to make sure, Carr stepped forward, put the barrel of his weapon to the man’s forehead, and shot him again.

Then he turned to Geordie. ‘You okay?’ he said.

‘What do you fucking think?’ said Skelton, through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve been fucking shot, you daft twat. Fuck me, it hurts.’

‘It’s only a flesh wound, you big girl,’ said Carr, with a sniff. ‘Sort your weapon out.’

Geordie nodded, cleared the stoppage, and stuck in a new magazine.

It was as the mag was slapped home that Carr looked down, and immediately saw that it was far from a flesh wound.

Geordie’s leg was sticking out at an unnatural angle, indicating that the round had hit bone; Carr knew that he could bleed out quickly from a shot to the femur, especially if the femoral artery was damaged.

‘Oh, bollocks,’ he said. ‘Right, Geordie. I’m going to pull you over to the wall over there and prop you up. Keep an eye on the doorway, okay?’

Another nod.

Sweating, Carr dragged Skelton the ten or twelve feet over to the side of the room. It was a bastard – he weighed more than 270lbs with all his kit, and he couldn’t help much, and Carr felt horribly vulnerable, especially when he had to turn his back to the door to sit him up.

Once that was done, Carr pulled the tourniquet from his chest rig.

‘Keep watching that fucking door,’ he said, feeling for the entry point on Geordie’s leg.

He found it, and then located the exit wound on the back of the thigh. It was large, and wet with blood, and full of bone splinters.

Shit, he thought. But at least the artery appeared to be intact.

‘Okay, mate,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. I’m going to put this on, yeah? It’s going to hurt a bit.’

Carr applied the tourniquet and pulled it tight.

Geordie let out a low moan of animal pain; he was a hard man, and Carr knew he must be in something near agony.

‘That’s done, mate,’ he said, wiping his bloodied hands on his combats. ‘Now listen, I need to go and clear that last room. Anyone but me comes through that door, you kill them. Got it?’

‘I’m coming,’ said Geordie. ‘You can’t do it by yourself.’

He tried to stand, but fell back down.

‘Ah, shit,’ he said. ‘That does fucking hurt. Give me a hand up.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Carr. ‘Stay here.’

Geordie gave him a thumbs-up with his left hand, his right wrapped round the pistol grip of his Diemaco, which was aimed at the doorway.

Carr smiled, returned the thumbs-up, and stepped out and back into the hallway.

Looking at the door to the last room, readying himself to step through that breach.

And then the handle started to move, and the door began to open.

Carr moved to the wall, flush to the door, and took aim.

A bloodied hand gripped the side of the door recess, and then a man of sixty or so stepped out, unarmed, hands cradling his belly. His white shirt was stained red with blood from a gunshot wound to the stomach, and when he looked at Carr the Scot saw shock but no fear in his eyes.

He smiled at Carr and nodded – as if he was acknowledging a stranger in the street, on a nice summer’s day. But then another man, much younger, stepped out behind him.

The second man looked at Carr for a split second, yelled ‘Allahu akhbar!’ and raised his hand.

Carr was diving back into Geordie’s room when the suicide vest detonated, and the force seemed to propel him even quicker.

Momentarily stunned, he came to a few moments later, lying in a heap in the floor, his ears ringing, covered in plaster and dust, and coughing and choking.

From outside, somewhere across the street, he could hear a voice shouting, ‘John! John!’

He sat up and looked around himself.

His hearing became clearer, and he realised that the shouting was coming from Geordie.

‘Jesus man,’ said Skelton, his own pain momentarily forgotten. ‘Fuck me. You okay?’

Carr patted himself down, and stood up. ‘Motherfucker,’ he said. ‘That was close.’

He could feel the heat before he saw the flames.

‘Geordie,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got to get out. The place is on fire. I’m gonnae have to help you up. It’s going to hurt, bud.’

Skelton shot him a withering look. ‘Just get on with it,’ he said. ‘It’s not like I can fucking hang around, is it?’

Carr keyed his radio. ‘Steve, house clear. We’re coming out the front. Get some guys over here to pick up Wayne, he’s down at the back.’

He helped Geordie to his feet, and they made their way quickly down the stairs, the injured man hopping on his good leg and cursing as he went; the flames were confined to the top floor, close to where the guy had detonated, but still the heat drove them on.

Outside, the assault teams had cleared the grey villa, and they were now starting to regroup, ready to move out.

In the distance, one or two shadowy figures were flitting across the road – locals, roused by the firefight.

As yet they’d not been contacted.

But it was only a matter of time.

They needed to get moving.

Geordie was starting to falter, the adrenalin waning.

Carr laid him on the ground, as gently as he could.

‘Medic!’ he shouted. ‘Medic! Quick!’

One of the team medics rushed over and took in the situation.

‘Has he had morphine, John?’

‘No mate, nothing. The tourniquet’s only been on couple of minutes. Soon as you get a drip in him, get him back to the vehicles and call into the Ops room. Casualty requiring immediate surgery, get the medevac stood by at the FOB.’

For a moment, he’d considered bringing the medevac into Dora, but he didn’t think the injury was life-threatening, and he wasn’t going to risk a heli and its crew, even for his best mate.

With Geordie handed over, he looked at his watch: from the first explosion until now, only six minutes had elapsed.

He jogged over to the OC. Forrest was standing talking to the primary assault team leader, and Carr picked up the tail end of the conversation.

‘Definitely dead?’ Forrest was saying.

‘That’s right, boss.’

‘Fuck me. We’re going to be popular now.’ He looked at Carr. ‘Did you hear that? Joker’s dead.’

‘Yeah,’ said Carr. ‘Good news.’

‘It’s not fucking good news, John.’

‘Hey, boss,’ said Carr. ‘We’ve got Wayne down round the back there, and Geordie’s took a bad one to the leg. So you’re right, it’s not good that he’s dead. It’s fucking great. Now, we need to get the fuck back to the FOB.’

2.

SIX MONTHS LATER – nineteen years after he’d passed Selection and walked into Stirling Lines in Hereford for the first time as a young blade – it was all over.

Carr had spent the time since getting back from that last tour on gardening leave, getting ready to leave the Army.

It wasn’t easy – the military was all he’d known since his early adulthood – and his marriage was collapsing. Not many lasted in his line of work: the longest period he and Stella had spent together since he’d joined the Regiment was three weeks, and being thrown together – with all the comedown of a demanding trip to Iraq, and the emotion of leaving... They weren’t at daggers drawn, but she didn’t know him anymore, and he didn’t know her, and neither of them cared too much. She was talking about taking the kids back home to Bangor, the County Down town where they’d met and courted. He wasn’t too keen on that – his little girl, in particular, was happy and settled in a good little school near Hereford – but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to fight her.

At least he had a decent job lined up – security manager with an oil company in Southern Iraq. Eight hundred quid a day, month on, month off. He might finally buy himself a decent car.

He’d spent a fair while with Geordie – that round in Dora had shattered the SQMS’s femur, and after three operations and a lot of metalwork he’d been left with a nice limp and a good line in bitter, melodramatic asides. The SAS never medically discharges any man against his will – there’s always a desk job needs doing somewhere – but Skelton had put his own papers in. If he was never going to make sergeant major, and clearly he wasn’t now, then what was the point?

‘Probably for the best,’ Carr had said, deadpan, as he sat in his mate’s hospital room. ‘You’d only have ruined the Squadron, anyway.’

The last thing he’d done in uniform was to attend the funeral of Wayne Rooney. It always upset him to see a flag-draped coffin, adorned with a beige beret, and it was even worse when the guy in question was young.

Rooney had been just twenty-four, and engaged to his childhood sweetheart.

But Carr took comfort in the fact that the men who wore that beret accepted the risk that came with it.

He’d been very glad to know Paul – the dead man’s real Christian name – he told the young man’s mother and fiancée, as the wake got going.

Glad, too – he didn’t add – that his days of visiting grieving families were over.

And now here he was, sitting in front of the Commanding Officer in Hereford for his farewell chat.

It was a bittersweet moment.

Carr and Mark Topham had been around each other for almost every year of the Scot’s Special Forces career, and they liked and respected each other, despite coming from very different backgrounds.

Topham had been born into privilege – big house, expensive school, his father a High Court judge – whereas Carr had grown up sharing a bedroom with his brother in a council tenement in Niddrie, the grey, miserable, shitey, arse-end of Edinburgh.

A welder, his dad, and his mum a school cleaning lady. Hard-working, good and decent people – his mother, in particular, had been a regular at Craigmillar Park Church just across the way – but there’d never been much in the way of luxury. If his dad was scratching around for work, and he often was, then some weeks there’d not been much in the way of food, either.

Mark Topham’s school friends were all stockbrokers or lawyers or businessmen; off the top of his head, Carr could name half a dozen pals from his own early years who were dead from heroin, or booze, or from looking at the wrong guy in the wrong way in the wrong pub. His best pal from junior school, Kenny Shaw, was currently doing a twenty stretch in Saughton for killing a guy in some stupid gang feud, and Carr knew that he could very easily have ended up alongside him. The very day he’d gone down to the Armed Forces Careers Office in Edinburgh – a fresh-faced teenager, in love with the idea of soldiering – a local ne’er-do-well had collared him outside the chippy and offered him twenty quid to keep a shotgun under his bed for a couple of weeks.

He’d been tempted, as well: he’d never seen twenty quid in his life. But he’d walked away from it – partly because it just felt wrong, mostly not wanting to upset his mum – and every day he gave thanks for that. The Army had given him discipline and focus, and turned him into a man.

And now, all those years later, he looked across the desk at Topham, waiting for him to try and twist his arm.

He wasn’t disappointed.

‘You know it’s not too late to change your mind, John,’ he said. ‘What would it take to keep you? Realistically?’

‘I’d like to be an operator in a Sabre Squadron again,’ said Carr, knowing he had more chance of levitating. Experience and know-how took you a long way, but there was no substitute for the strength and fitness and aggression that a younger man could bring.

‘Yes,’ said Topham, making a church steeple out of his fingers and smiling ruefully. ‘I thought you’d say that. But that’s the one thing we can’t do. Not even for Mad John, I’m sorry to say.’

Carr smiled despite himself at the nickname, which had followed him round the Regiment for the last fifteen years.

‘Of course you cannae,’ he said. ‘But you asked. What else is there? Become an officer? No offence, Mark, but that’s not me.’

‘This has been your life for nearly twenty years. Are you sure you want to walk away from it all?’

Carr looked at the CO for a moment. ‘No, I’m sure I don’t want to. I fucking hate the idea. But it comes to us all, and this is my time. I’m going to walk to the main gate, hand in my pass, and it’s all behind me.’

‘I respect that. It’s a shame, but I respect it.’

Carr smiled. ‘Not to mention, I’ve been offered a job I can’t refuse. Twenty years living in shitholes, getting shot at, blown up, eating compo… It’s time to enjoy life. It disnae last forever. I want the cash.’

‘You tight Jock bastard,’ said Topham, shaking his head and grinning.

Carr laughed. ‘Me, a tight Jock bastard? Here’s you with your stately home, and your polo ponies.’

‘Fair one,’ said Topham, with another rueful expression.

‘Boss, trust me, I hate it more than you do, but it’s just time to go. At least I can walk out the gate with my head held high, and think about all the guys we knew who didn’t have that option. I beat the clock. Ask young Rooney if he wants to walk out the Camp again. Ask Pete Squire, or Jonny Lawton, or Rick Jones. Ask any of them.’

‘True. A lot of good men on that clock.’

‘Too many.’

Mark Topham stared out of the window at a cloudless blue sky. The thump of a helicopter landing on the field outside bounced through the glass.

‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t try,’ he said, with a resigned smile. ‘You’ve had a citation submitted for the night in Dora, by the way.’

Carr raised his eyebrows. ‘Just doing my job,’ he said. ‘It’s not about the medals.’

‘Sell it to Ashcroft, then. But joking aside, well done. Richly deserved.’

‘Thanks boss. Means a lot.’

Topham stood up, and Carr followed suit.

The 22 CO held out a hand. ‘I can honestly say, John, that it has been an enormous pleasure and a singular privilege to serve with you. You’re always welcome here. Godspeed.’

A slight lump in his throat, and his eyes stinging a little, Carr nodded.

‘Aye,’ was all he could manage.

He strode out of the Commanding Officer’s room into the corridor and towards the exit to the Regimental Headquarters building, where he walked, head down, straight into a tall, slender man in the corridor – a man whose angular appearance belied his considerable tenacity, courage, and intellect.

Major General Guy de Vere, Director Special Forces, who had arrived a few minutes earlier on the helicopter, for a planning meeting with Mark Topham.

‘Christ, John, you nearly took me out,’ said de Vere, when he saw who it was. ‘I understand you’re leaving us?’

‘Yeah, that’s me, boss,’ said Carr, shaking the outstretched hand. ‘I’m out the door. Civvie street.’

‘Mark couldn’t persuade you?’

‘Nah. Sorry.’

De Vere shook his head. ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘Amicitiae nostrae memoriam something-sempi-something fore.’

‘I’ll be honest with you, boss,’ said Carr. ‘I havnae a clue what you just said there.’

‘Cicero,’ said de Vere. ‘I hope the memory of our friendship lasts forever.’

‘Jesus,’ said Carr. ‘I’m not dying, you know. I only live down the road.’

Guy de Vere smiled broadly and clapped Carr on the shoulder.

‘Tell you what, John,’ he said, ‘we’ve come a fucking long way since that night in the Clonards, haven’t we?’

PART TWO

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND TWENTY YEARS EARLIER

3.

LANCE CORPORAL JOHN CARR hefted his rifle in his left hand and looked across the vehicle yard at the young officer.

‘Jesus,’ murmured Carr. ‘I reckon your missus shaves more often than he does.’

Next to him, Corporal Mick ‘Scouse’ Parry chuckled. ‘You cheeky bastard,’ he said. ‘Fair one, mind.’

A thin, pink dawn was just catching the top of the Black Mountain on the edge of west Belfast, but the inside of Fort Whiterock was still lit by orange sodium. In the glare of one of the lights, the second lieutenant – who was very tall and very slender – was struggling to lay out the unwieldy tribal map on the bonnet of his Snatch Land Rover.

‘He’s in my wagon, is he?’ said Carr, with a thin smile. ‘I think I’ll stick the lanky streak of piss up on top cover. See what he’s made of. Hopefully he’ll get a pissy nappy in the face.’

‘Character-building,’ said Parry, with an approving look.

The officer finally succeeded in smoothing down the map, and now he made a show of studying it.

‘Look at him,’ said Carr, shaking his head. ‘The height of the bastard, he’ll make a fucking good target. Mind you, he’s a thin cunt. They’ll hardly see him if he turns sideways.’

Scouse Parry chuckled again.

Off to the left, near the main gate and in the shadow of the base’s massive walls, a group of soldiers – members of 7 Platoon, C Company of the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment – stood around, stamping their feet against the cold, breath forming clouds, waiting on the order to load their weapons.

Two Snatch Land Rovers and a grey armoured RUC Hotspur idled in the background, blue diesel exhaust drifting slowly over the white-frosted tarmac.

Two policemen leaned against their wagon, carbines slung round necks, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly about a young WPC one of them had his eye on.

Occasional laughter erupted from the soldiers; one started coughing violently and cursed and threw away a butt.

It was going to be a long day: patrolling and setting up VCPs in Ballymurphy, Andersonstown, and Turf Lodge till long after dark, and finishing with a shift change for the RUC at Springfield Road, before a return to the relative safety of Whiterock.

All in the shadow of the Provisional IRA’s murderous bombers and gunmen.

‘I’ll go over and have a word,’ said Carr. ‘Wind him up a bit.’

‘Go easy on him,’ said Parry, with a smile. ‘Five minutes.’

Carr strolled across the asphalt to where 2Lt Guy de Vere was bent over the map, trying to cram the different areas of the city – shaded orange for the Protestant sectors, green for the Catholic – into his memory.

‘You alright there, boss?’ said Carr.

De Vere turned to look at him. He felt oddly intimidated by the hard-faced Scottish NCO, despite being several years older and senior in rank. He couldn’t decide whether it was down to Carr’s undeniable physical presence – he had a Desperate Dan jaw, broad shoulders and merciless eyes – or his brooding silence. The man had barely said a word to him before now, and what he did say was said in such a thick accent that subtitles would have been useful.

At least the blokes seemed to understand what he wanted.

‘Fine, thanks, corporal,’ he said. ‘I was just having a last minute refresher.’

Carr’s face was an expressionless mask, his mouth hidden by a drooping, bandito moustache of the sort the men seemed to favour.

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Mean fucking streets out there.’

‘Yes,’ said Guy de Vere, slightly nervously.

A month earlier, the Paras had lost three A Coy men to a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a ruined cottage down near Mayobridge: the city just beyond the gates was every bit as hostile.

De Vere was fresh out of the box, new in the battalion, and in the Province, and today’s was his first patrol, on his first tour. He was nominally in charge, but really his role was to watch everything that Scouse Parry and John Carr did and said, and learn.

Not all that long ago, he’d been enjoying a lucrative career as an investment banker in Hong Kong. But, vaguely unsatisfied with life, he’d chucked all that in to come home and do something more meaningful with his life – a decision which had left his Toms shaking their heads in wonderment when they’d found out about it.

Half an hour earlier, Carr had seen de Vere take a wander up into one of the sangars overlooking the streets outside, and he tried to imagine what the officer was thinking.

Probably:

Last year I was earning six figures and living the dream.

Now I’m in a shithole where half the population wants to take my bastard head off.

What the fuck have I done?

‘Boss, you’re doing top cover,’ said Carr. ‘It’ll give you a better look around so’s you can understand the Area of Operations.’

Plus, it’ll do you some fucking good to go through what the lowest, youngest, newest crow in the multiple goes through, he thought.

De Vere nodded. He didn’t fancy top cover one bit – you spent the whole day exposed, on offer to whoever wanted to have a pop – but he didn’t show it.

‘Right you are, lance corporal,’ he said.

‘Main thing is, keep your eyes peeled for that RPG cunt down on Kennedy Way,’ said Carr. ‘He’s an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire. Knows what he’s about.’

De Vere nodded again: he’d had that worrying piece of information stuck into his head a few times in a series of scary briefings.

‘If he gets one off and it hits the wagon, that’ll seriously ruin your day,’ said the Scot, with a cheerful grin. ‘You’ll be lucky if it only takes your legs off.’

De Vere pushed his shoulders back. He thought for a moment about the journey up from Palace Barracks the previous evening. That had been bad enough, and it had been in the back of a Saracen, a purpose-built armoured vehicle with sixteen mil of steel protecting him. Hot, and claustrophobic, but at the end of the day sixteen mil was sixteen fucking mil. The Snatch was a lot more vulnerable.

‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled, corporal,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

‘Good,’ said Carr. He looked at the second lieutenant more closely. ‘You okay, boss?’ he said. ‘You look a bit white.’

‘I’m fine, Lance Corporal Carr.’

Carr felt for him, momentarily. He remembered his own first time out of the gate: he was a fighter by nature, but even his arse had been going a little.

‘Listen,’ he said, leaning in closer and lowering his voice. ‘Everyone shits themselves the first time. The trick is, dinnae let the blokes see.’ He looked over at the Toms. ‘It’ll be fine. The RA have got snipers, but they’re shite. I’ve never heard of anyone being hit in a moving vehicle. And that cunt with the RPG?’ He looked at the young officer’s rifle. ‘You see the fucker, just give him the good news with that.’

He threw back his head and laughed, and at that de Vere felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He looked at Carr: at a shade over six feet tall, and thick-set and hard-eyed, he held his loaded 6.5kg SA80 rifle like it was a toy, and wore his parachute smock folded back at the sides in a style the men favoured. His helmet was covered in camouflage scrim held in place with a thick black rubber band. All in all, he looked very ‘ally’ – the current Para Reg slang for cool.

‘Thanks, Carr,’ he said. ‘Much appreciated.’

‘Nae problem, boss. Just another day. It gets a lot easier after this one.’

‘John,’ shouted Scouse Parry, from across the yard. ‘Get ready to roll.’

‘Aye, Scouse,’ yelled Carr. ‘Two minutes.’ Then he looked at the soldiers. ‘You lot!’ he barked, in his thick Edinburgh growl. ‘Let’s start fucking sparking! First three to the loading bay!’

Three Toms made their way over and stood pointing their weapons casually into the bay.

‘Load!’ said Carr.

The soldiers went slickly through the drill, checking their safeties, inserting a magazine, securing their pouches, hands gripping front stocks.

‘Make ready!’

The sound of three SA80s being cocked, racking a live round into the chamber. Three sets of eyes and thumbs re-checking three safety catches.

‘Mount up!’

They stepped away from the loading bay and walked to their vehicle.

‘Next group. Come on, get a frigging move on!’ snapped Carr. He looked over at de Vere. ‘Then it’s you and me, boss!’ he shouted, in a voice that almost sounded like an order. ‘Let’s get weaving. No time to think about your girlfriend.’

‘I don’t have a girlfriend, lance corporal,’ said de Vere, his voice higher and reedier than normal.

He realised immediately that he had responded too quickly, too sharply.

He hadn’t meant it, but stress does funny things to people.

‘Boyfriend then, is it, boss?’ said Carr, with a broad grin. ‘I mean, equal opportunities and all that. And you being a public schoolboy.’

From across the yard, Carr heard Scouse Parry cackle.

He saw de Vere open his mouth to speak, and then shut it, and force a grin.

Good boy, he thought. You’re learning.

A moment later, Carr and de Vere made their own weapons ready, and Parry walked over.

‘My vehicle first then, boss,’ said Parry, to de Vere. ‘Then the RUC, then you and Carr. Eyes on stalks, eh?’

Parry walked off to the front Land Rover, whistling tunelessly, nodding at the RUC and chivvying his driver and Toms aboard.

Carr watched Guy de Vere bend his tall frame to get up on top and then climbed into his own vehicle.

He looked at his driver, a young Cornish private called Shaun Morris.

‘This new rupert’s shitting himself, Shaun,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Long way from the playing fields of Eton.’

‘Where’s that?’ said Morris.

‘Never mind,’ said Carr.

Up ahead, Parry was running through a final check, making sure everyone was on-board.

Then he looked toward the men manning the gate.

‘Get it open,’ he shouted, and stepped into the vehicle, shutting the armoured door behind him.

And then his driver put the vehicle into gear, and they all headed out through the gates.

4.

IT’S A BIG THING, to kill a man in cold blood.

So Gerard Casey had slept badly in the little back bedroom in the terraced house in Lenadoon Avenue, a mile or two distant from Whiterock.

He’d woken up at 5am in the middle of some kind of sweating nightmare, and since then he’d been sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the red digits on his clock radio move slowly onwards.

Nearly six now.

He sparked up another Red Band and grimaced as he sucked down a lungful of cheap, bitter smoke.

Right leg jiggling on the frayed carpet.

Sure, you’ll be fucking fine, Gerry, Sean had said, a day or two earlier. The first time’s the hardest. But after that it gets easy.

His older brother, ‘Sick Sean’ Casey. An Active Service Unit member, a soldier in A Company in the 1st Battalion of the Provisional IRA’s grandly-titled ‘Belfast Brigade’, and a proven and tested killer.

Gerard stared at the U2 poster hiding the peeling woodchip paper on the wall opposite.

Bono, in that fucking silly hat and them fucking silly shades.

I can’t close my eyes and make it go away, either.

Guts churning, he stubbed the fag out in the loaded Harp ashtray on his little bedside table and stood up, pulling the grey kecks out of his arse.

Went to his chest of drawers and took out a pair of jeans.

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking slightly.

‘Get a grip,’ he said to himself. ‘Fucking twelve hours yet.’

He put the jeans back and selected another, older pair.

He’d be burning every scrap of clothing on his body later on, and he didn’t want to be getting rid of his only pair of 501s.

The old Wranglers, they could go.

He bent down, stepped into them, and pulled on a plain black T-shirt.

Looked out his bedroom window.

Four days to Christmas, and there were trees and lights in half the front windows in the street.

Across the rooftops he could see the raised security tower of Woodbourne police station.

Things had been different in the area since the Paras had taken over. Those bastards didn’t fuck around, and God help you if a patrol caught you late at night. They’d kicked the shit out of one of the main players the other week, put him in hospital good and proper. Then they’d spray-painted the wall of his house with 3 PARA WE OWN THE NIGHT.

The police had done fuck all about it, even though an official assault complaint had been put in.

The peelers laughed about it, so they did. He’d heard talk of it in the Davitts.

Treat us like second-class citizens, so they fucking do.

He looked at the tower and shivered, and for a moment he had an eerie feeling that he was being watched.

He shook his head.

Paranoia.

Better get used to that, Gerry.

He was brought back to reality with the banging of a fist on the front door.

A second later, another bang.

Louder this time.

‘Would you ever piss off!’ yelled Gerard’s mother, from her pit down the landing.

‘It’s alright, ma,’ shouted Gerard. ‘It’s just Sean.’

His mother said something muffled and angry, the hangover making her head thump, but Gerard had already cracked open his window.

‘Stop banging the fucking door,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

In the dawn-dark street below stood Sean, hopping from foot to foot, blowing on his hands, dressed for the cold.

Sean was Gerard’s way in to the RA.

His recruiting sergeant.

He wanted it, did Gerry. He wanted to be a Republican foot soldier, like Sean.

He wanted the respect, the attention, the name.

The women.

Who hardly gave him a second glance, now, but would be all over him like a rash once he made his bones.

But he also knew that he was crossing a line.

Right here, right now, he was just another wee civvie standing in his back bedroom.

By the time he was back in this room tonight he’d have crossed over into another world, a world from which there was no way back.

He felt anxious.

The paranoia was back.

5.

AT EXACTLY THE MOMENT that Gerard Casey opened his window, another alarm clock sounded.

This one was on a cheap Formica bedside table, next to the head of a young man in a very similar bedroom, in an all-but identical terraced house, about five miles distant as the crow flies.

Only five miles, but Northland Street was a world away from Lenadoon Avenue. It might as well have been a different country, and in a way it was: to get there, you’d to wade through rivers of blood.

The young man in Northland Street – William ‘Billy’ Jones – opened one eye, clicked off the alarm clock, and groaned.

He was glad of the money that came with his recent promotion, but he missed the extra couple of hours’ kip.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he half-rolled, half-fell out of bed and onto his knees.

From there, he stood up and stumbled into the bathroom for a piss, and then stumbled back to his bedroom to pull on his uniform.

Black trousers, white shirt.

He fished a badge saying ‘Assistant Manager’ from his trouser pocket, and pinned it on his chest.

Stifling a yawn, he crept slowly downstairs to the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as possible.

His da’ would have been out with the boys until the wee small hours, and he was not a man to annoy when he was hungover, his da’.

Not a man to annoy at any time: Billy Jones Senior was a leading commander in the Ulster Volunteer Force, and a violent man with a hair-trigger temper and a light-heavyweight’s physique. He wasn’t shy of using his hands, even now his son was twenty.

Billy Senior was a dyed-in-the-wool bigot, for whom the only good Catholic was a dead one. Billy Junior bore no such hatred. He’d flatly refused to get involved with the UVF, and Billy Senior had made it quite clear that he despised the boy for it. He was a coward, a traitor, a taig-lover…

Christ. Billy Junior smiled guiltily to himself as he reached up for the cornflakes. If only the old bastard knew.

He was seeing a Catholic girl, a pretty wee thing called Colleen who worked in the bar. They’d had to keep the whole thing secret – his da’ would kill him if he found out, definitely kick him out the house, and hers wouldn’t take it much better. The sooner the two of them could save up the money to get the fuck out of this Godforsaken city, and move in somewhere together… London, maybe. Maybe the States. Somewhere that it didn’t matter whether or not you believed in the Virgin Mary, or thought the sun shone out of King Billy’s arse, or cared what football team anyone supported.

Colleen had hinted that she wanted to get married, settle down, have kiddies.

He imagined a big family wedding.

His old man would go proper mental.

A fucking papist wedding in a fucking Fenian church?

Red-faced, veins bulging, steroid-popping eyeballs sweeping over everyone in the other pews.

And then the reception… Billy Senior and his brothers on the lager and scotch, her da’ and his brothers on the Guinness and vodka chasers…

Fuck me, but it would be a bloodbath.

Nah, they’d be living together. Somewhere a very long way away.

Hey, maybe they’d get wed in Vegas? Just the two of them.

An Elvis wedding.

He grinned, put his bowl in the sink and slipped on his favourite red adidas jacket.

Upstairs, he could hear the old man snoring.

He’d see Colleen tonight when their shifts overlapped.

Not for long. Just a kiss and a wee cuddle.

Five minutes alone.

Go back later to walk her home.

It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

And it wouldn’t always be like this.

6.

BILLY HAD LET himself in at the front of Robinson’s just after eight.

Switched on the lights and the heating.

Ran his hand down the length of the dark wood bar to check it wasn’t sticky and breathed in the mixture of stale fags, spilt beer, and Pledge spray polish.

He walked to the office at the back of the pub.

Looked at the notebook to see if the night manager had left anything.

They were running short of Carling Black Label.

One of the bar staff had given her notice, but temporary cover was being arranged – one of the lads, his younger sister had done a bit of bar work before.

All good. No problems.

Humming tunelessly to himself, he went into the kitchen and from there down into the cellar to double check the lager stocks.

At just after nine o’clock, he went back to the front door to let in Stephen and Laura, the cook and barmaid who were on that morning.

‘Alright guys?’ he said, with a broad smile. ‘Is it cold enough for ye, is it?’

For a moment, he stood in the doorway, smelling the frosty air, and looking up and down the street.

His last morning on earth, and he had no idea.

7.

LATE MORNING, and the Paras and their RUC colleagues were pulled up in the middle of Ballygomartin Road, right on the western edge of the city, putting in a VCP.

John Carr had finally allowed 2Lt de Vere to come down from top cover, and now the two men were standing side-by-side.

De Vere was standing to Carr’s left, watching him out of the corner of his eye, and mimicking his stance and movements, sometimes consciously, sometimes without even knowing he was doing it.

Carr in turn had been watching the young officer all morning, assessing him, looking for weaknesses.

He was no-one’s idea of a class warrior – though his father was a staunch Communist – but he was only human, and he defied any working class Scotsman not to get a wee bit ticked off by the chinless Old Etonians the Army kept putting in charge.

But it was like anything: some were shite and some were okay, and, to be fair to the beanpole next to him, this one didn’t seem too bad.

Completely fucking clueless, obviously, but there were just a few signs that he might have the makings.

For starters, he’d stayed up top throughout without even the hint of a complaint, and when they’d gone down Kennedy Way he’d got a proper game face on, his rifle into his shoulder, covering his arcs. True, he hadn’t had any filthy nappies lobbed at him, but there’d been a few stones thrown and more than a few insults shouted in his direction, especially when they’d been down by the Bombay Street peace line early doors, and he’d taken it all in his stride, unflinchingly. Carr had known plenty of new ruperts who’d shown a lot less backbone.

They’d been doing VCPs for four hours now, give or take, and had pulled over plenty of cars. Sometimes the vehicles were searched, and sometimes the drivers just got spoken to for a few moments and then waved on. Carr could see that the apparent randomness of it was confusing de Vere, but at least he had the honesty and good sense to realise that he was out of his depth. Credit to him, he was doing his best human sponge act, trying to soak up the signs and tells and little indicators that Carr, Parry and the police officers were working on.

Their vehicle was in the middle of the current checkpoint, pushed out into the opposite side of the road to create a chicane between the police Hotspur to the front and Mick Parry’s Land Rover to the rear.

The traffic was light, and in a lull Carr turned to look at de Vere.

‘Alright, then, boss?’ he said, surprising the officer. ‘Coping, are we?’

‘Just about, corporal,’ said de Vere, gripping his SA80 a little tighter. ‘Thank you.’

‘We got shot at down here last week,’ said Carr, casually. He nodded at a distant block of flats. ‘Fella with an Armalite had a pop from over there.’

De Vere followed his gaze.

‘Missed the top of Keogh’s head by three or four inches,’ said Carr, deadpan. ‘Now, someone as tall as you…’

De Vere looked at him, careful to stand at his full height.

‘I don’t…’ he started to say, but Carr cut him off.

‘Customer coming, boss,’ said Carr. ‘We havenae time to stand here gossiping.’

An old purple Morris Marina up ahead was being flagged down by the RUC, and its driver was pulling over as directed – a sensible move, with the eyes and rifles of several stony-faced members of the 3 Para multiple trained on him. Enough people had been shot for driving through checkpoints that you had to be off your face on drugs or drink, or deeply stupid, or a member of PIRA with weapons on board and no other options, to try it.

Carr waited until the car had come to a halt and the driver had switched off the engine and was showing his hands.

He looked at de Vere. ‘This one’s an old hand, boss,’ he said. ‘Conor Gilfillan. Bomb-maker. He’ll have nothing on him, but we should fuck him about a bit. You can have a word. Off you go.’

De Vere swallowed hard. ‘Right-ho,’ he said, and walked over to the Marina, making a wind-your-window-down motion with his hand.

He leaned in and looked at Gilfillan, a weaselly-faced little man with piggy eyes and several day’s growth.

‘Can I ask where you’re going please, sir?’ said de Vere. ‘And I’d like to have a look in your boot if I may?’

Gilfillan stared at him with ill-disguised contempt. ‘Sure, this is a free country, is it not?’ he said. ‘What fucking business is it of yours where I’m going?’

Carr leaned in past de Vere and rammed his gloved hand between Gilfillan’s legs.

Grabbed his balls, and squeezed.

Hard.

‘Answer the officer’s question, you RA cunt,’ he said, applying yet more pressure.

The bomb-maker’s eyes were almost popping out of his head, and both his hands were on Carr’s wrist, trying in vain to pull him away.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’

Half an hour later, a chastened Gilfillan was finally allowed on his way, after apologising to Guy de Vere for his rudeness and watching the Paras conduct a thorough but fruitless search of his vehicle.

‘Never mind May I look in your boot please, sir, boss,’ said Carr, phlegmatically, as he watched the Marina disappear. ‘That’s how you handle cunts like him. You’re never going to make a friend of the fucker, so why bother trying?’

De Vere nodded.

Just then, a woman pushing a toddler in a buggy walked past.

She didn’t break stride, or look at them, but out of the corner of her mouth she said, ‘You look after yourselves, lads. It’s a good job you’re doing.’

Carr watched the young second lieutenant follow her with his eyes, and then the look of surprise which came over his face.

‘What?’ said Carr, eyebrows raised. ‘You think they all hate us?’

‘No,’ said de Vere. ‘Obviously not, but…’

‘We get a lot of that,’ said Carr, turning to look down the road, eyes sweeping for threats. ‘Most people here are no different to most people anywhere. They just want to live their lives, and they know us and the RUC’s the only thing stopping a massacre.’

‘Would it be that bad?’

Carr looked at him with a face which said, Are you serious?

‘It’d be a bloodbath, boss,’ he said. ‘There’s not many of the bastards, but they’re some of the most evil people you’ll ever meet. On both sides.’ He paused, narrowing his eyes for a few moments at an old Ford Granada which was approaching, and then relaxing. ‘But don’t you worry. You’ll find all this out for yourself.’

8.

MIDDAY. SICK SEAN and Gerard were sitting around the Casey family kitchen table with Ciaran O’Brien, a thickset man who smelt of sweat and old beer.

The third team member, O’Brien was another hardened Republican from a long line of hardened Republicans stretching back to the 1600s, the Eleven Years’ War, and beyond.

It was a way of life for some people.

The three of them spoke in hushed voices, as if the breadbin might be bugged.

Which, actually, it might be. You literally never knew, until the fuckers kicked the door in one day and dragged you away.

The hard work, the reconnaissance and the planning, had been done.

The weapons had been removed from the cache in Milltown Cemetery off the Falls by the hide custodian the previous night. He’d stripped, oiled and reassembled them, and moved them into a temporary location in the Poleglass, over Derriaghy way.

The final weapons-move to the forming-up point – McKill’s, a well-known Republican bar on the Suffolk Road, out on the south-western outskirts of the city – would not take place until just before the Active Service Unit arrived to collect them. The less time the guns were in play, the better. To be caught with them was effectively a death sentence: many a good man had been killed by those murdering Brit bastards, even when he’d known the game was up and was trying to surrender.

They’d collect their vehicle at McKill’s, too. A red Ford Sierra – the most common car, and the most common colour of that car, in the city. Stolen to order three weeks earlier, hidden away and fitted with ringer plates that went to an identical vehicle, so that it would at least pass any casual check by the peelers.

If any of them got a little more nosey, all bets were off.

Gerard Casey couldn’t sit still.

He stood up and went out into the back garden to smoke the last of his twenty Red Band.

‘That’s a filthy habit,’ said Sick Sean, after him. ‘It’ll kill you.’

He burst out laughing, but he was half serious: Sean Casey was a muscle nut gym monkey who lived on grilled chicken, salad, and handfuls of parabolin, winstrol, halotestin, and whatever other anabolic steroids he could get his hands on. Plus an occasional amphet sharpener.

‘Is he gonna be alright?’ said Ciaran O’Brien. ‘Your wee man?’

He pronounced it ‘marn’.

‘He’ll be fine,’ said Sean, dismissively. ‘It’s a piece of piss.’

They sat in easy silence for a few moments. The kitchen smelled of the stale chip pan, and O’Brien’s Blue Stratos aftershave. The only sound was the relentless tick of the plastic clock on the wall behind Sick Sean’s head.

Ma Casey stuck her head in and said she was off to the Co-Op.

Sean frowned and nodded curtly.

She meant the pub. An hour or so, and she’d be drunk; two hours, and she’d be oblivious.

Gerard came back into the warmth of the kitchen, rubbing his freezing hands together.

‘Let’s have another go through the plan,’ said Sean.

‘I know the plan,’ said his younger brother, sharply.

‘I didn’t fucking ask if you knew it, boy,’ spat Sean. His body had tightened and his fists were suddenly bunched. ‘I said let’s go through the fucking plan.’

Gerard stopped in his tracks. When his brother was in this mood, you didn’t push his buttons unless you liked hospital food.

‘Listen, Gerard,’ said Sean. His voice was a little calmer, but his teeth were gritted. ‘Sitting here and talking about it, that’s the easy bit. The next easiest bit is killing the fucker. D’you know the hard bit?’

Gerard nodded.

‘The hard bit’s not getting fucking caught and spending the next thirty years in Long Kesh. So let’s go over the fucking plan one more fucking time.’

The younger man nodded again, a mental image of Billy Jones Jnr entering his head. The three of them had spent hours and hours over the last two months in surveilling their target, and by now he knew Billy’s face and his movements better than the back of his own hand. A week earlier, he’d even stood at the bar in Robinson’s and made sure to be served by Billy, so that he could see his face right up close, and really know the detail.

He’d looked into the lad’s eyes, and had seen his own reflection.

Seemed a nice enough guy, no different to himself.

Don’t think like that.

‘He leaves Robinson’s at the end of his shift between six and six-thirty,’ he said. ‘He takes about ten minutes to get to the car park.’

‘What’s he wearing?’

‘Black trousers, white shirt, and he always has that red adi jacket on.’

‘Car’s he driving?’

‘Dark green Austin Allegro. W reg.’

‘Where will we be parked?’

‘Behind his vehicle – not directly behind, but somewhere we can cover all approaches, and enough distance so’s I’ve time to react when we see him.’

‘Good,’ said Sick Sean, unclenching his fists and relaxing slightly. ‘Okay, we see him walking up. What then?’

‘When he’s near the driver’s door, I get out the car, walk straight towards him. Ciaran gets out and covers my back with his AK. You get ready to start the engine.’

‘You missed something.’

Gerard Casey thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘Sorry. When we see him we all pull our balaclavas down.’

‘Bingo. Carry on.’

‘I walk straight to him, slow and steady, take my time, no running. I get to just beyond arms’ length, and stop before I fire. I put two rounds in the middle of his back. When he goes to the ground I put the barrel to his head and put another round into him. Then I turn around and walk back to the car, with the gun down by my side.’

Sean nodded. ‘You never run,’ he said. ‘Never. Nice and steady. Remember that. Okay?’

Gerard nodded. ‘I get in the car, and Ciaran gets in after me. Then we drive slowly out the car park and head back.’

‘Balaclava?’

‘We lift them when we’re in the car and away from the area.’

‘Some hero gets in your way on the way back to the car?’

Gerard Casey hesitated. Had they discussed that possibility? He couldn’t remember.

‘What you going to do, son? Fucking think.’

‘Show them the pistol and tell them to fuck off.’

Sick Sean shook his head. ‘You kill them, Gerard,’ he said, emphatically. ‘Stone cold. Man, woman or child, I don’t give a shit. Got it? I’m not doing that kind of time for no-one, understand?’

Gerard nodded.

‘We’re going to give his old man an early Christmas present, alright,’ said O’Brien, with a big grin.

‘He’s definitely not a player?’ said Gerard.

‘No,’ barked Sean, ‘but that doesn’t fucking matter. Don’t go fucking thinking about it too much. He’s guilty by association.’

There was a heavy silence in the kitchen.

A dog barked outside.

Gerard Casey got up and patted his pocket.

‘I need to go and get some more fags,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour.’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ said Sean. ‘And Ciaran’s going with you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I fucking say so, that’s why. This is a military operation, and we have procedures. I’m not having you phoning your handler and warning off the Special Branch.’

Gerard gawped at him. Eventually he blurted out, ‘I’m no fucking tout.’

‘I know you’re not, son,’ said Sean, flatly. ‘It was a joke. If you was, sure you’d be dead by now, brother or not. Now go and get your fags, and then we’ll go over the plan again.’

9.

LESS THAN HALF a mile away, LCpl John Carr’s Land Rover led the three-vehicle Parachute Regiment/RUC patrol in through the big steel gates to Woodbourne police station, and parked up.

It was just before 13:00hrs, and within a matter of minutes the ravenous Toms were wolfing down police canteen sausage and chips, full of cackling and abuse.

Lt Guy de Vere carried his metal tray to the table and sat down opposite Scouse Parry and John Carr.

‘Not the sort of scoff you’re used to in the Officers’ Mess, boss,’ said Parry, shovelling a forkful of chips into his face, and winking at Carr. ‘But I bet you’re hungry.’

Carr chuckled. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘All that nervous energy, eh, Scouse?’

De Vere smiled: after a morning in their company, he was just starting to get used to the soldiers’ gentle piss-taking.

‘I was more scared of Private Keogh’s driving than the PIRA,’ he said, cutting into a fat sausage.

‘Fucking hell, boss,’ said Keogh, next to him. ‘I’m the best driver in the battalion!’

The other driver – Morris – shouted something abusive from the other end of the table. They all dissolved into raucous laughter, and de Vere started eating.

When they’d all finished, Parry disappeared off and John Carr wandered over to the hatch and fetched them both a huge mug of steaming tea.

‘We’ve got five minutes, boss,’ he said. ‘Get your laughing gear round that.’

‘Thanks, Corp’l Carr.’

They sat there, the tall, blond, well-bred Englishman and the dark, hard-faced Scot from the sprawling Edinburgh council estate: wildly different in many ways, but brought together by the uniform and pride in their work.

Carr watched him sip the hot, sweet tea. He looked knackered, but then the special stresses and strains of walking the streets of Belfast in a British Army uniform did take it out of you, and it was worse when you were the FNG and trying to catch up. Young Guy de Vere would have learned more in this half-day than in his entire Army career to date. The episode with Conor Gilfillan… they didn’t teach you stuff like that at Sandhurst, thought Carr.

It was as though de Vere had read his thoughts.

‘At least there’ll be no junior Gilfillans,’ he said. ‘After what you did to his bollocks.’

Carr grinned. ‘There’s about a dozen of the little fuckers already, sadly,’ he said. ‘But the greasy wanker will remember you, alright, boss. Nasty wee shite.’

‘All those tricolour-painted kerbstones and murals,’ he said, leaning back and looking at Carr. ‘And the graffiti. Fuck the Brits. Troops Out. It’s not the most salubrious city, is it?’

‘Come again?’ said Carr.

‘Belfast. It’s a bit rough.’

Carr picked at his teeth with a match. ‘Where are you from?’ he said.

‘Marlborough,’ said de Vere. ‘Well, a village not far from. My family has a farm there.’

‘Nice part of the world,’ said Carr, laconically. ‘I can see why you’d think Belfast was not very salubrious.’ He picked a bit of sausage out of his teeth, looked at it and put it back in his mouth. ‘But Belfast is better than where I’m from. See these semi-detacheds and nice rows of terraces?’ he said. ‘We dinnae have too many of them. Where I’m from, it’s all fucking tenements.’ He chuckled. ‘And we dinnae have the polis and the Army keeping order, neither. It’s dog eat fuckin’ dog.’

He watched in amusement as de Vere blushed slightly.

‘So where are you from?’ said the young officer.

‘Niddrie, boss. East Edinburgh.’

‘I don’t think I know it.’

‘You wouldnae. Shitehole. Good for heroin, stabbings, single mums, and dogshite. That’s about it.’

‘Family all up there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Nah. I mean, I’ve got a bird, like, but I met her over here.’

‘Planning to get married?’

‘To Stella?’ Carr laughed, and then was serious. ‘Tell you the truth, I’ve not thought about it.’

‘Father in the Army?’

‘In the war. But he left as soon as he could, like. He didnae like being fucked about by posh English bastards. No offence.’

It was de Vere’s turn to laugh. ‘I’m certainly English,’ he said, ‘and some might say I was posh, but my parents were married and I promise not to fuck you about any more than I absolutely have to.’ He paused for a moment. ‘So what made you join?’

Carr thought for a moment. ‘Always wanted to be a soldier,’ he said. ‘Since I was a boy.’ He grinned. ‘I like a good scrap, boss, and there’s no better way to get yourself into a scrap than join the Paras.’

‘And what are your plans?’

‘Selection.’

‘The SAS?’

‘Aye. I’m down for the next course.’

‘Good luck.’

‘No such thing. Hard work and mental strength, that’s what’ll get me through.’

De Vere polished off his tea and looked round the room.

His eye fell on Mick Parry, deep in conversation with the two RUC men.

‘Corporal Parry seems an impressive guy,’ he said.

‘Sound as a pound,’ said Carr. ‘Hard fucker, like. But fair. The blokes love him. Officers, not so much.’

De Vere nodded.

‘Brave, as well,’ said Carr. ‘Where we met Gilfillan, down on Ballygomartin? We were there three weeks back. Friday night. Drizzly, it was. Road was wet. Fucking joyriders come down there at seventy, maybe eighty. Stolen XR2i.’

He paused.

‘You know we lost one of the guys to a joyrider at the start of the tour? Never stopped. Hit him on the white line in Andytown. Good mate of mine. Fucking tragic.’

De Vere said, ‘Yes, I know about the incident.’

‘Ever since that, the blokes are fucking twitchy about joyriders,’ said Carr. ‘And the joyriders know it. So this XR2i comes down the road, sees us, and the driver jams on the anchors. Greasy road, shit tyres, the driver was only fifteen. No idea how to get out of the skid. He rolled the car and it hit a lamp-post fifty metres from our position. Set on fire. The lad was fucked up and dead, but there was three other kids trapped in the car – his mate and two wee girls. Mick run straight up the road and dragged them kids out of that car. Knowing it could have gone up at any minute. Or that some PIRA wanker might see him and have a pop.’ Carr finished his own drink. ‘He should get an award for it, really.’

‘And what…’ said the young lieutenant, but he was interrupted by the tramp of Mick Parry’s German para boots on the green lino.

‘Right, John,’ he said, to Carr. ‘Time to get the lads sparking.’ He looked at the lieutenant. ‘You too, boss. Can’t sit around all day chin-wagging with this idle fucker.’

10.

AT AROUND THAT moment, a call was being made from a secure line at 10 Downing Street in London.

The man making the call was a major in the Royal Anglians who was on military liaison attachment to Mrs Thatcher’s personal staff.

The man receiving the call was the 3 Para adjutant in Belfast.

The call was to confirm final arrangements for an event which the two men had been discussing over the previous three days – an unannounced flying visit to Belfast by the PM.

The previous Thursday, gunmen from the Provisional IRA’s Belfast Brigade had shot three off-duty RUC men in a pub off the Shankill Road, killing two and seriously injuring the third. It came hot on the heels of the deaths of three members of the Parachute Regiment in the Mayobridge bombing, and together they demanded a political response.

At some time after 6pm that evening, Mrs Thatcher would be flying in for a secret visit to Knock, to meet grieving family members, and to rally the troops.

A pre-Christmas morale booster.

And, because of that, the city would be crawling with extra Army patrols, cars full of Special Branch, undercover members of 14th Intelligence Company – the surveillance specialists known as ‘the Det’, whose job it was to infiltrate both the Republican and Loyalist communities – and various other watchers, followers and shooters.

11.

AT A QUARTER-TO-FIVE, as the winter darkness fell, the Casey brothers and Ciaran O’Brien finally left the house in Lenadoon Avenue.

Gerard felt simultaneously light and heavy, terrified and excited.

It was weird how the other two looked so relaxed; he tried to copy them.

Well-practised in counter-surveillance, they moved on foot – you spotted a tail much quicker that way – and headed across Lenadoon Park, a nice, wide-open space with enough ambient light to see if you were being followed. They walked out onto Derryveagh Drive, and then down to the Suffolk Road, which was long and straight enough to give good views in either direction.

They turned north.

Almost immediately, Sean said, ‘Shit!’ and dropped his head into his collar.

On the opposite side of the road, a joint Army–RUC mobile patrol was approaching, moving between one exercise in fucking up people’s lives and another. The front driver slowed, and the top-cover in the tail vehicle gave them a long stare, his SA80 rifle held at the ready. A tall, slim officer, he was new in the Province, but he was a diligent man, and he’d spent hours poring over mugshots of the main players. He might well have recognised Sean Casey and Ciaran O’Brien, had the light been better, and that would have been enough to get them a tug. Worse still for the IRA team, the soldiers were Paras, which quite possibly meant hours of being pissed about, and the job off for that night.

But in the gloaming and the drizzle the top-cover couldn’t make them out, and the Land Rovers rumbled and trundled on their way.

A few minutes later, the three of them walked in to McKill’s. It was early and empty, and the barman was polishing glasses. One man sat nursing a pint at a table by the wall – a low-level player who nodded respectfully to Sean and Ciaran. Gerard Casey, his stomach light and queasy, threw a strained half-smile at the barman, and got a quizzical look in return before the fellow went back to his polishing; something was clearly up, but he knew better than to see or ask anything.

They headed straight through to the office at the rear of the building.

The door was locked.

Sean rapped on the flaking green paint with his knuckles.

It was opened – slightly, at first, then wide – by a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties who was wearing dungarees and a thick jumper.

Gerard realised to his surprise that he knew the guy – his name was Martin Thompson, and he coached a kids’ Sunday football team down on the Rec there.

Gerard had had no idea that he was a member of the RA.

The cell structure, in action.

They stepped past Thompson, and the door was locked behind them.

The room was empty apart from an old table, a few chairs, a sports holdall, and a telephone.

Sitting on the table was another man, late twenties, a ginger bog brush on his head, and a face full of freckles – Brian ‘Freckles’ Keogh, Gerard knew his rep alright.

Next to Freckles was what Gerard recognised in the glare of the single bare lightbulb as a folding stock AK47, with two of its distinctive curved magazines lying beside it. There were also two pistols – he couldn’t have named them, but one was a modern-looking thing and the other an old revolver. Next to the revolver was a mug which bore the Celtic FC crest and contained a magazine for the automatic and six rounds for the revolver.

He realised with a jolt that both of the men were wearing pink washing-up gloves. In his state of controlled panic, the incongruity made him want to giggle, but he fought it back and kept his silence.

‘Alright, fellas,’ said Thompson.

‘Alright, Tommo,’ said Sean.

He nodded at Freckles.

‘Evening, Freck.’

‘Ready?’ said Freckles.

‘As always.’

Martin Thompson picked up the holdall and opened it. ‘Here’s your change of clothes for later,’ he said, indicating a Tesco carrier bag. ‘And you’ll need these.’

He picked out three other carrier bags and handed them over. Each contained a pair of pink Marigolds, still in their plastic packets, and three new balaclavas.

‘You know the drill,’ said Martin. ‘Get yourselves gloved up before you touch the weapons.’

Each of the three pulled on a pair of the gloves.

‘Over the bottom of your sleeves,’ said Sick Sean to his brother, holding out a wrist. ‘Like I showed you.’

Once the gloves were on and the sleeves tucked in, Freckles produced a roll of duct tape and went from one to the other, taping the gloves in place.

‘That’s great, Sean,’ said Gerard, as casually as he could. He felt oddly talkative, and blurted out, ‘Feels a bit weird.’

His voice sounded as though it was coming out of someone else’s mouth, and for some reason a vision came to his mind: a trip to Barry’s in Portrush… What had he been? Seven? Eight? He’d got on the roller coaster, full of bravado, and then they’d locked the lap belt on, and there was no way off, and he’d pure near shit himself, and there was nothing to do but sit there and go with it and hope it wasn’t going to be too bad and just wait until it was all over because you can’t get off can’t get off can’t get off

‘You’ll get used to it,’ said Ciaran O’Brien, calmly. ‘It’ll keep the forensics off your hands. Unless you like the look of the H Blocks?’

The two new men chuckled. ‘Ah, leave him be,’ said Martin.

Nothing to do but go with it, and hope it’s not too bad.

Satisfied, Freckles stood to one side and the three men walked to the table. O’Brien picked up the AK, cleared it, then loaded a magazine and made it ready. He put the spare magazine into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Gerard went to pick up the semi-automatic – it was a 9mm Browning Hi-Power – but Sean slapped his hand away. ‘Fuck off, that’s mine,’ he said, grabbing it, loading it and putting it into his waistband.

Gerard Casey picked up the revolver, and looked at it in disbelief.

It was a late-model Webley, liberated from an unfortunate British Army officer at some point in the previous half century.

Its wooden handle polished smooth by many hands.

Bad hands.

‘This looks like a fucking antique, so it does,’ he said. ‘You sure it’ll be okay?’

‘Better than an automatic,’ said his brother. ‘No chance of it jamming. Sure, it’ll blow that prod fucker’s brains out, I know that much. Make a hell of a fucking bang.’

O’Brien smiled wolfishly. ‘And a hell of a fucking hole in his head,’ he said. He pushed the Celtic mug across the old table. ‘You’d better load it.’

‘Is that all the bullets I get?’

‘If you need any more than that you’re a dead man,’ said O’Brien, flatly. ‘We’ll not be hanging around.’

Gerard Casey broke the pistol open and emptied the half-dozen shiny .38 brass cartridges into his gloved palm.

Trying and failing to hide the shaking of his hands, he slotted them slowly into the cylinder.

‘Where’s the car?’ said Sick Sean.

Martin picked up the phone and dialled a number; it rang once and was immediately answered.

‘Car,’ he said, and put the phone down. He turned to the three. ‘Be out front in five minutes, boys.’

Gerard looked at the pistol in his hands, and then slipped it into his waist band. He stared at the floor, not wanting to look around.

There was a knock on the door and then a voice through the wood: ‘Car’s out front, Marty.’

Gerard brought his head up.

Sean was staring straight into his eyes, and now he smiled.

‘Showtime,’ he said, his grin widening into a leer.

Gerard shivered. He had never until that moment realised just how evil his brother looked.

But there was no going back now.

12.

AT 18:00HRS, THE PARAS had conducted the shift change for the RUC crew, and now they were sitting in Springfield Road police station, drinking yet another round of Tetley teas.

Second lieutenant Guy de Vere reckoned he’d drunk half a dozen cups already that day, and not out of the dainty little Royal Doulton china teacups that his mother liked, but out of big black plastic Army mugs which each held about a pint. It was playing hell with his bladder.

Around him, the men were relaxing in the smoky warmth.

Mick Parry, an unlit B&H fag in one corner of his mouth, was telling one of the older Toms a filthy story about a girl he knew back in Wavertree.

Keogh and Morris were sucking Fox’s Glacier Mints and bickering good-naturedly over who was the better driver.

John Carr had his head buried deep in a dog-eared book.

‘What are you reading?’ said de Vere.

Carr held it up. ‘Chickenhawk,’ he said. ‘Robert Mason.’

‘The Vietnam book?’ said de Vere, unable to keep the note of surprise out of his voice.

Carr looked at him. ‘I might never have went to Eton, boss,’ he said. ‘But they do teach us to read, you know.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said de Vere. ‘And I didn’t go to Eton myself, either.’

‘Not posh enough?’ said Carr, with a grin. ‘The OC won’t let you in the Mess if he finds out.’

‘You read a lot of military history?’

‘A fair bit, aye.’

Pte Keogh leaned over. ‘Guess his favourite song, boss,’ he said.

‘No idea,’ said de Vere.

‘Dancing Queen,’ said Keogh, with a cackle. ‘By Abba.’

Carr grinned. ‘That’s a fucking good track, right enough,’ he said. ‘But let’s get one thing straight. My favourite song is actually Love Will Tear Us Apart.’

‘Joy Division?’ shouted one of the Toms, from across the room. ‘Bunch of poofs.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Carr. ‘It’s a fucking classic. Ian Curtis, a man gone too early. Brilliant band.’

‘I don’t think I…’ de Vere started to say, but Carr was away, singing the first few lines of the song.

‘Jesus,’ said Scouse. ‘Cover your ears, lads, what the fuck is that? Sounds like a ladyboy in distress.’

‘Get to fuck, Scouse,’ said Carr. ‘You know the birds love my singing. Gagging for it, once I start.’

‘Maybe that fat NAAFI bird up in Whiterock, mate, but no-one else,’ said Parry. ‘Oh yeah, that other fat bird in Palace Barracks.’

‘They all need loving, Scouse,’ said Carr. ‘And don’t get jealous. I’ve got a Readers’ Wives you can borrow later.’

‘Fuck off, you jock bastard!’ said Mick Parry, and the rest of the room fell apart.

De Vere smiled to himself: this was evidently a tight-knit bunch of blokes, high on morale and led by a pair of excellent NCOs. He’d begun the day feeling like the proverbial fish out of water but, to his amazement, he was already starting to feel accepted. In turn that felt like an enormous privilege.

He looked at his watch: 18:15hrs.

They were done for the day, bar the drive back to Whiterock, and he was just starting to think about getting back to his room, and writing that letter to his father to let him know how his first day had gone, when an RUC inspector stuck his head in and beckoned Parry outside.

A minute or two later, the Liverpudlian corporal returned.

‘Okay, guys, listen in,’ he said, looking at the blokes. ‘Get your kit on, and let’s get out to the vehicles. We’re not done yet after all.’

He came over to Carr and de Vere.

‘John, boss, they want us to do some extra VCPs in the Clonards,’ he said, with the air of a man who was entirely used to being fucked about by the Army, and could take more of it than they could ever dish out. ‘Down in the Lower Falls area. We’re gonna be out a bit later than we thought.’

‘Right-ho, Corp’l Parry,’ said the young officer, standing up. ‘Any specific reason?’

‘There’s something big going on, but they don’t share shit like that with the likes of us, do they? The RUC crew don’t know, neither.’

‘Thanks, Parry,’ said de Vere. He hesitated for a moment, and then dropped his voice and leaned in slightly. ‘It’s been a good day. You’ve been a great support.’

‘It’s not over yet, boss,’ said the corporal, with a broad smile. ‘Trust me, this bollocks can go on all night.’

Outside, the Toms were already waiting patiently next to the vehicles.

‘Listen in,’ barked Parry, and proceeded to give them a quick brief, pointing on his map to where they would set up the first VCP.

They would leave the RUC station and head along the Springfield Road into Kashmir Road, then right into Clonard Gardens, and finally into Clonard Street, facing towards the Falls Road.

They’d put the VCP in at the junction with Ross Mill Avenue and Clonard Street – a chokepoint that everyone had to pass through, if they were trying to cut out the Falls so as to avoid the nearby RUC station.

At 18:35hrs the vehicles rolled out of Springfield Road.

Five minutes later they were set up in the Clonards, and the VCP was operating.

13.

THE IRA HIT TEAM found a space in the row behind the Allegro, about six cars along to the right of the driver’s side and sitting between two other cars so that they would be shielded from Billy Jones’s view as he walked to the car.

The car park was poorly-illuminated, and the route to his vehicle kept him away from theirs, so there was no chance of him seeing them and spooking.

It was perfect, near-as.

Sick Sean Casey killed the engine and the lights, but left the key in the ignition. He rubbed his head – it was itchy under the hot, rolled-up balaclava – and took the pistol from his waistband. He hid it under his right leg, where he could get at it quick if needs be.

In the rear, Ciaran O’Brien absently patted the AK, which was lying on the seat next to him under a dark towel.

Gerard held the Webley up, staring at it in the low, orange light from the nearest lamp.

‘Put that fucking thing down, Gerard,’ hissed Sean.

If a chance RUC patrol or – God forbid – an undercover SAS team rolled into the carpark, just as Gerard was waving his frigging gun around like he’d just won it at the fair, the last thing the three of them would see was muzzle flash. Those fuckers were out there every day and every night, and if they saw a pistol in your hand it was game over.

No warning, no surrendering.

No second chances.

Murdering bastards. He looked out of the window and sighed. Be glad when this is fucking done.

Gerard slipped the revolver under his right leg like he’d seen his brother do and sat there, fingers rat-a-tat-tat drumming on his thighs.

Ten or fifteen minutes, and they would be moving.

This was the vulnerable time, the sitting and the waiting.

He leaned forward and clicked the radio on – quietly, quietly.

Some old song he didn’t know.

Something about fear, and guilt, and a fire.

He grimaced and clicked it off again.

‘Hey, leave it on,’ said O’Brien, leaning forward. ‘That’s Funeral Pyre. It’s a fucking good song. The Jam, was it? I remember when it come out.’

He whistled a bar or two of the tune.

Gerard Casey switched the radio back on, and said nothing.

Twenty years old, and about to make his name…

O’Brien grinned.

To be fair, he thought, he’d probably been like that the first time himself.

Actually, no, I fucking wasn’t. But my first really was a piece of piss. That fucking tout, strapped to the chair in that barn, crying and begging. With my old man watching.

It was eight or nine years ago now, but he remembered it well: the cold steel of the pistol in his hand, the muzzle to the guy’s elbows, then his knees, then his ankles.

Finally his temple.

Once the order was given, O’Brien had been careful to show no weakness, and no hesitation, even though he knew the guy, and his sons.

All the time, his da’ watching, expressionless: he could never have shown the old bastard up.

He leaned forward and squeezed Gerard’s shoulder.

‘You’ll be alright, Gerry,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in The Volunteer tonight and I reckon that Roslyn McCabe’ll have her knickers at her ankles for you, once she knows.’

Gerard looked over his shoulder and tried to smile. ‘You reckon?’ he said.

‘Definitely,’ said Sean. ‘Sure, I’ve fucked her sister, and the young one’s no better. Tiocfaidh ár lá, son. Now keep your eyes on that car.’

14.

A LITTLE OVER A MILE due west, the Paras and their RUC attachment had plotted up in Clonard Street.

But whatever it was that had forced them to stay out later than expected, it hadn’t reached the Clonards.

They’d been in place for approximately fifteen minutes, but the area was as quiet as the grave.

So far they’d only had to deal with five or six cars.

Some had turned into Clonard Street and then into Odessa, blatantly avoiding the checkpoint, and, as he and John Carr stood beside the open door of Parry’s vehicle, a red Renault Trafic van did just that.

‘Doesn’t necessarily mean fuck all,’ said the corporal, out of the side of his mouth, from the vehicle commander’s seat. ‘All sorts of reasons people don’t want to get fucked about, boss. Might just want to get home quicker.’

Not for the first time that day, de Vere reflected on an unfortunate fact about the work they were doing.

Yes, they were making life harder for bad men. But they were making life harder for good men, too.

‘Not too static, boss,’ said Carr, and wandered off to the side of the road.

Stamping his feet in his boots to get some blood back into them, de Vere crossed to the opposite pavement, and took a moment to look around himself. He could just about make out his men in various doorways up and down the street, rifles at the ready, covering the VCP and the approaches. The dark made him uneasy: even now, a man might be hidden in some shadow with an Armalite into his shoulder.

But he knew that he was going to have to live with it.

Back in the middle of the road, the two RUC officers were leaning against their vehicle, their weapons held very casually, smoking.

Carr wandered over and nodded in the direction of the coppers.

‘They’ll probably get it if it’s coming, boss,’ he said, quietly. ‘Look at that one tabbing away. The end of his fag’s standing out like a bulldog’s bollocks, right in the middle of his swede. Plus their drills are shit. Standing out in the open, not moving around.’ He shook his head. ‘I suppose you cannae blame them, in a way. Same shit, day in, day out, year after year. Maybe anyone’d get complacent. Got to take your hat off to them, really. When they go home at night this disnae stop.’

Carr walked on, and de Vere watched the RUC men. It was true: the tips of their cigarettes were like bright red bullseyes in the dark street. He knew that many of the PIRA players regarded the local police as the true, traitorous enemy, the Brits being not much more than an inconvenience who would fuck off once the local opposition was scattered and broken.

Rather them than me, he thought, and immediately felt ashamed of himself.

Shaking that off, he stifled a yawn. He ached for the comfort, if you could call it that, of his room in Whiterock.

A hot shower, something to eat. His bed.

Maybe they’d finish before too long?

It was very quiet. He hoped so.

Not that it had been all that bad a day. The nervousness he’d felt that morning was gone.

Carr had been right: it was getting easier.

Good man, Carr.

The sort of man the British Army lived and died on.

15.

NOT LONG AFTER six-thirty, Billy Jones Jnr handed over to the evening manager at Robinson’s, ran him through the stocktake and the till, and managed to have a few minutes in the back office with Colleen before he said goodbye.

Eventually, he walked her back to the bar, pulling on his adidas jacket, and put his foot on the brass rail.

‘It’s gonna get messy tonight,’ he said, raising his voice over the hubbub.

The place was already buzzing with several raucous Christmas office parties.

Girls with Santa hats on their heads, knocking back Malibu and Coke.

Lads with pints in hands and wandering eyes.

Wham! on the speakers.

Last Christmas.

A heart, given to someone special.

‘Shall I pick yous up at midnight, darlin’?’ he said.

‘Aye,’ said Colleen, with a cheeky grin and a twinkle in her eye. ‘Don’t be late, ’cos I have something for you.’

He blushed – stop blushing you eejit – and said, ‘Really?’

‘Uh huh,’ she said. ‘And I think you’ll like it.’

‘I’ll not be late then,’ he said, with a big smile.

A man appeared at his elbow waving a tenner, so Colleen broke off.

Billy zipped up his jacket and walked out of the pub, the smile still plastered across his face.

She was a rare one, alright. He couldn’t wait for midnight.

Five minutes later, hands thrust into his pockets against the cold, he reached the car park.

Jangling his keys.

He shivered. He knew the car would be bitterly cold inside – the heater was crap, the seats were plastic. Probably have to scrape the ice off first.

Still, only ten minutes and he’d be home and in front of the gas fire for his beans on toast or fish fingers and chips, or whatever his ma had in mind. Then he’d…

He became dimly aware of footsteps behind him, light and quick, and then – before he could turn to look – two things happened simultaneously.

There was a thump in his back – it felt like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer – and a deafening sound.

He knew right enough that it was gunfire – you didn’t spend twenty years in Belfast without recognising that sound – but he was confused because it sounded so close.

Shots always rang out somewhere over there, half a mile away. Not right next to you.

Didn’t they?

He realised that he was being pushed forwards, and then it happened again – the thump, the noise – and he staggered, felt the strength go from his legs.

There was pain too, now – real pain in his back, searing heat and stabbing sensations – and he couldn’t breathe, like he’d been badly winded.

He collapsed onto his knees.

Tried to stand up but couldn’t.

His head was spinning.

He fell forwards.

Somehow, he realised, he was now flat on the ground, his face pressed against the cold, wet tarmac.

Confusing.

What’s… How…?

The last thing that Billy Jones Jnr felt was something hot being pressed into the soft flesh behind his left ear.

Then nothing.

16.

THE RED SIERRA nosed its way back towards the Falls Road.

At first, no-one said a word.

Gerard Casey was trembling with adrenalin, and an odd mixture of pride and shame, of happiness and grief.

He’d just killed an innocent young man, only a year older than himself.

So what the fuck did that make him?

But then, this was war, and he’d done it for the cause.

That, and Roslyn McCabe, and her knickers round her ankles…

Their route had taken them back along Great Victoria Street, passing by Robinson’s, and now they were in the evening traffic, heading north to join the Falls from the Divis Street end, well away from Springfield Road RUC.

Travelling slowly in the bumper-to-bumper flow, fighting the urge to overtake somehow, or turn off and take a quicker route.

In the cold night air, the sound of the three shots would have travelled a fair way.

Someone might already be kneeling over Billy Jones’ body.

Someone might have seen the red Sierra leaving the car park straight after the hit.

You just never knew how quick that someone could call in its description, or how quick the police and the Brits could react.

Their focus now was on ditching the car and getting it alight as soon as they were on safe ground.

A patch of scrubland off Glen Street.

The two gallon can of four-star in the boot, and a match.

Then pile into McKill’s.

Get the weapons back to Martin and Brian.

Strip.

Hand over their clothes for burning.

Dress.

Then off to The Volunteer, and a nice cold Guinness, and then…

Outside, it was sleeting and Baltic cold, but inside the vehicle heating was turned down low.

If the car misted up a little, so much the better.

Sick Sean driving slowly, not wanting to attract any undue attention, just another guy going about his business.

A big, fuck-off grin on his face.

Occasionally looking at Gerard.

Who was the first to speak.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Christ!’

‘Fucking outstanding,’ said Ciaran O’Brien, from the back seat. ‘Fucking brilliant!’

‘I told you the wee man would be fine,’ said Sean, over his shoulder. ‘It’s in the blood. He’s a stone-cold killer. Did you see the way the big sack of shite went down?’

‘I did,’ said Ciaran, from the back. ‘A good operation, Gerard. Well done. Proud of you, son. No hesitation. Straight in there. UP THE RA!’

He shouted the last, and punched the seat in glee as the car turned left into the Falls, moving with the ebb and flow of the traffic.

‘He was the same age as me, near enough,’ said Gerard, half to himself.

‘He had it coming,’ said O’Brien. He clapped Sean on the shoulder, and hooted in delight. ‘Billy Jones’ fucking son! What a fucking result!’

‘Yeah, his old man’s going to go fucking bananas when he finds out,’ said Sean.

‘He’ll…’ said Ciaran.

Then, suddenly alert: ‘What’s that? Is that a siren?’

It was. In the distance.

Sirens, plural.

‘Ach, it’s miles away,’ said Sean, after a moment.

But it was a timely reminder to them all.

Keep focused.

Don’t relax.

They were still in play, and any number of people in this miserable, benighted city would kill them on sight, if they got the chance.

The UDA. The UVF. The UDR. The RUC.

Even INLA, if the mood took them.

And of course the fucking SAS, or ‘the men in cars’ from the Det, 14th Int Coy, who were often mistaken by their targets for the boys from Hereford.

They were fiendishly good at what they did.

Sure, them bastards could be behind them right now.

Or ahead.

Or both.

Just waiting for a radio message to take down three men in a red Sierra.

Sean glanced nervously in his mirror.

‘Keep your eyes on the road, Sean,’ said Ciaran O’Brien from the back seat. ‘You look out for checkpoints, let me worry about who’s following us.’

Gerard Casey now slumped in his seat.

All that nervous energy gone.

The car drew level with Leeson Street.

The traffic was slow.

Must be the lights at Springfield Road Falls junction.

That’s all it is.

We’ll be on our way in a jiffy.

But fate was not on their side.

Unbeknown to them, Margaret Thatcher had landed at Aldergrove forty-five minutes earlier, and the security services were on high alert: twice the normal number of regular Army, twice the RUC presence, not to mention spooks, undercover SF and various others.

And just then the red Sierra rolled to a stop behind a bus – right under a fucking streetlamp, of all things.

17.

SICK SEAN CASEY looked out of his window and met the eyes of a man behind the wheel of a car stuck in traffic on the opposite side of the road.

Six feet away.

No, four.

Lit up by the same streetlamp, and the lights from the car behind the IRA team.

Big guy, probably six-two, moustache. Scruffy bastard.

Sean Casey habitually noted faces; he had a good memory for them which had helped keep him alive, until now.

He didn’t know this guy.

But there was something about him – for all that his gaze was casual – and Casey sensed it straight away.

And he felt his guts lurch.

‘Your man there…’ he said softly, almost to himself.

Moustache’s shirt and pully and jacket looked like an Oxfam scarecrow’s hand-me-downs, and his hair was collar-length and unkempt.

But it was all too carefully done – too studied.

It looked like an act, and it didn’t hide his bearing, which was fit, and strong, and confident.

Military.

Sick Sean would never know it, but he was spot on.

The man was a lance-jack in 3 Para Close Observation Platoon, dressed in civvies and driving an admin vehicle from a resupply visit to his mates at Springfield Road RUC, where they were pulling extra hours for the visit of the Iron Lady.

Bastard fate had brought Sick Sean and the man with the moustache together, separated only by a few millimetres of glass and a white line.

Moustache’s passenger and vehicle commander were idly looking out of their own windows in the opposite direction from the stolen vehicle, visually covering their arcs while stopped, oblivious for now as to who was on their right.

But Moustache was suddenly wide awake, eyes narrowed, trying to place the face, flicking into the rear of the Sierra.

That guy looks familiar. Who the…?

Sick Sean could almost see his cogs turning, his mind’s eye flicking through mugshots and briefings.

Then he saw it click into place.

Sean Casey.

Sick Sean Casey.

At that point, Moustache should have yawned and broken his stare – he’d had it hammered into him enough times by the SAS instructors at Hythe and Lydd – but even the best of men can fall victim to the shock of the moment.

Instead, he turned to the vehicle commander.

‘That’s that cunt Sean Casey, opposite,’ he said, under his breath. ‘And it might be Ciaran O’Brien in the back.’

The commander snapped his head around and locked eyes with O’Brien.

‘We’re made,’ said Sean, a flustered edge to his voice. ‘The fucking SAS!’

The soldier said something to his passenger, and reached down.

That was enough for O’Brien. A split second later, he brought up his AK47 and opened fire from the back seat.

The blinding muzzle flash lit up the interior of the vehicle, but it was the noise which really shocked Gerard Casey. It was thunderous, the pressure from the long burst resonating through the car and erupting out of the destroyed window.

In his panic, O’Brien fired off almost a full magazine. They were unaimed shots, the weapon jumping around in his grip, but even so it was a minor miracle that only one round found its target. That round took the COP lance-corporal in his right shoulder, split and scored and shattered its way down his humerus, and exited near his elbow, putting him completely out of the game.

O’Brien was shouting, ‘Drive! Drive! Drive!’ but Casey was already on his way.

Gunning the engine, swerving round the bus, battering and scraping his way past the traffic behind the Army car.

The carburettor sucking in air.

Behind them, the COP vehicle commander had stepped out onto the tarmac, his Heckler and Koch MP5K raised.

He fired two short, aimed bursts into the rear of the moving vehicle, which was now ahead of the bus and accelerating away, sliding left and right, wheels squealing.

The back window frosted from the impact of the rounds, but, with civilians in cars and on foot, he was forced to hold his fire as the Sierra got beyond thirty metres.

But one of his rounds had done its job.

It had entered the rear right side of Ciaran O’Brien’s neck and had exited the front left side, opening the jugular vein as it passed through flesh and muscle, blood and matter spraying over Sean and Gerard. O’Brien was thrown forward and released the AK, and it clattered and slid past the gearstick and into the front passenger footwell at Gerard Casey’s feet.

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

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