For a few more seconds Harry indulged himself, conscious of the softness of the moment. He knew from the other times of great danger that he had faced that he could cocoon himself in sentimentality for his family, for Mary and the boys. It was part of the mechanism of protection which Harry understood and cherished.
As the airliner began its approach across the small fields towards Aldergrove Harry fastened his belt strap, and let his thoughts turn to the man whose image was imprinted in his mind. He could see the man, could put flesh and colour and dimensions on to the dark lines of the photokit. The target. Was he an enemy? Not really. What, then, if not an enemy? Just a target. Still to be killed, no question of that. Eliminate — it rolled off Harry’s silent tongue. It was the word he liked.
He was jolted awake as the wheels suspended below the wings banged down onto the scarred tarmac. The plane surged forward in the air at a little more than ninety miles an hour, bounced again, and began to slow with the application of the engine’s reverse thrust.
Terminal 1, Heathrow, the first-floor cafeteria. Davidson was breakfasting with the team who had come up to see Harry off. It was a subdued meal without the frills of conversation. Not much had been said after Harry had disappeared towards the security checks. Davidson had muttered, almost audibly, ‘Gutsy little sod.’
‘I’ll take the bill,’ he had added, as they rose from the table, and then, as an afterthought, ‘I think we’ve told him all we could in three weeks, but it’s bloody little time. To do that job properly you’d need six months. And then you couldn’t be sure. Always the same when the politicians dip their toes in — short cuts. That’s the order of the day. To come through with three weeks behind him he’ll need to be lucky, bloody lucky.’
The anomaly of going to war in your own country was not lost on Harry. He came down the steep steps from the plane and hurried past the RAF Regiment corporal, who held his rifle diagonally across his thighs, right-hand forefinger extended along the trigger guard. There were coils of barbed wire at the flanks of the terminal building, sprawled across the flower beds that had once been sufficient in themselves to mark the perimeters of the taxi-ing area. The viewing gallery where people used to wave to their friends and relatives was now fenced with high chicken wire to prevent a missile being thrown onto the apron; it was out of bounds to civilians, anyway. After getting his bag in the concourse Harry walked out towards the coach pick-up point. Around him was an avenue of white oil drums with heavy planks slung between them — a defence against car bombers moving their lethal loads against the walls of the buildings. He moved by a line of passengers waiting to take the Trident back to London. They stood outside, occasionally shuffling forward with their baggage. Up at the front the searches went on in two green prefab huts. Only rarely did the faces of the travellers match the brightness of their going-away clothes: children silent, women with their eyes darting round, the men concerned with getting the cases to the search and then eventually to the plane. Greyness, anxiety, exhaustion.
Harry climbed on the bus, and was quick enough to ensure himself a window seat near the back.
By the time the coach had left the fields behind and was into the top of the Crumlin Road the man directly behind Harry was in full voice. Taking upon himself the role of guide and raconteur, outmatching those who lead crocodiles of tourists round the Tower of London and Hampton Court, he capitalized on the quiet of the bus to demonstrate his intimate knowledge of the campaign as fought so far.
‘Down there on the right — you see the small lane — just round the corner where you can’t see — that’s where the three Scottish soldiers were murdered… the pub… the one that’s blown up — the one we’re passing — they took ’em from there and killed them down the road when they were having a slash. There’s nothing to see there now… people used to put flowers, but not now, nothing to see except there’s no grass in the ditch where they got it… Army dug it all up looking for bullets, and it never grew since. Now on the left, where the road climbs up, towards the quarry, that’s where the senator was killed… the Catholic senator with the girl, they were killed up there, stabbed. Last year it was, just before the elections. Look now in front, there she is, the greatest city on earth. Down below, left, not hard left, that’s Ardoyne… over to the right that’s Ballymurphy… we’re coming into Ligoniel now.’
It’ll be bus trips for the Japanese next, thought Harry. Once they’ve stopped looking round Vietnam you’ll be able to flog them Belfast. By special demand after the world’s greatest jungle conflict, we offer you reduced rate to the longest-ever urban guerrilla war. Roll up! Roll up! Get your tickets now!
‘Now wait for the bumps.’ The man behind was away again, as the bus had slowed to a crawl. ‘Here we go now. See we’re outside a barracks… there on the left… they all have bumps outside now… stops the Provos belting past and giving the sentry a burst with a Thompson. They used to have luminous paint on them, the bumps, that’s gone now… if you don’t know where they are you give the car a hell of a bang… hit one of those at fifty and you know about it… that’s Ardoyne, now, over on the left, where the policeman is. That’s a sight for the English, policemen with bullet-proof coats and machine-guns… won’t use the army flak jackets, have their own. We cut across now, they don’t rate going down the Crumlin in Ulster buses. We’ll use the Shankill. Looks all right, doesn’t it, quiet enough? See that hole on the right? That’s the Four Steps bar… killed a fair few when that went up. Not a breath of a warning. Look there on the same side, see it? That hole… that was a furniture shop… two kiddies died there — not old enough to walk.’
‘Shut up, Joe, nobody wants to know. Just wrap it.’
Perhaps Joe felt he had given his virtuoso performance. He fell silent. Harry watched out of the window, fascinated by the sights. At the traffic lights the driver nudged up to the white line alongside a Saracen armoured car. Soldiers were crouched inside the half-open steel back doors, rifles in hand. On the other side of the crossroads he watched a patrol inching its way through the shopping crowds. On all sides were the yards of pale-brown hardboard that had taken over from glass in the display windows of the stores. The policemen here had discarded their sub-machine-guns, but let their right hands rest securely inside their heavy dark coats. It surprised Harry how much there was to see that could have been a part of any other British industrial city — buses, cars, people, clothes, paper stands — all merging in with the great military umbrella that had settled itself on Belfast.
At the bus station Harry switched to another single-decker that went high up on the Antrim Road to the north, speeding past the troubled New Lodge Junction before cutting into residential suburbs. The houses were big, old, tall, red-brick and fading. Davidson had given him the name of a boarding house where he’d said Harry could get a room, three stops up past the New Lodge.
Harry got off the bus at the stop, and looked round to find his bearings. He spotted the house they had chosen for him and moved away from it farther down the long hill till he was about a hundred and fifty yards from the seedy board with its ‘vacancies’ sign. Then he waited. He watched the front door for twenty-five minutes before he saw what he’d half expected. A young man came out down the steps that led to the short front path. Clothes not quite right, walk too long, hair a fair bit too short.