Two guns in fact – and that was the problem. He looked sideways at Sean, sitting bent over in the passenger seat. Blood was dripping on the floor and had completely soaked the leg of his jeans. He had to get him to a doctor fast, or the poor bugger was going to bleed to death.
‘Hang on,’ he urged him, ‘we’re almost there.’ But they weren’t: he didn’t dare run the risk of driving through the centre of Belfast – rush hour was just starting and he wasn’t going to sit in traffic, waiting for the PSNI to pick them up.
So he took the Knock Road south through Castlereagh, almost to the countryside, until the road swung west and brought them to the beginning of Andersonstown. Here Danny drove fast, under the A1 and into the large industrial estate built on the edge of the Catholic neighbourhood. He turned the van into a small side street running around the back of Casement Park, the ageing football stadium that the city fathers kept talking about replacing.
Suddenly he braked sharply, and Sean groaned. There was a police car parked at the front of the stadium on Andersonstown Road.
Reversing would simply call attention to the van. There was nothing for it but to brazen it out. He slowed to a crawl as he neared the intersection. Would the van’s description have been circulated? Would they notice the number plates?
As they passed, he sneaked a look. The patrol car was empty. He speeded up again. Two blocks away he pulled off St Agnes’s Way, where a row of eight lock-up garages occupied one end of a small plot with a FOR SALE board stuck in the muddy grass.
‘Hang on, Sean,’ he ordered as he pulled up and the groaning started again. ‘Help’s on the way.’
Without looking around, Danny unlocked and lifted the steel shutter, then ran back to the van and drove it into the wide garage. Once he’d turned on the lights and pulled the door down again, he did his best to make Sean comfortable, lying him across both of the front seats. Blood was no longer spreading across his leg. Was that a good sign? Danny didn’t know. He’d never seen anyone shot before.
He stood by the steel door to make sure the signal was strong, and dialled a number on his mobile.
‘Hello.’ The voice was terse, emotionless.
‘Mr P, it’s Danny.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice was terse.
‘We’ve got a problem. It didn’t go according to plan.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wasn’t our fault, Mr P. We got the bastard, but he got Sean and—’
‘Where are you?’
‘At the lock-up. I’m sure we were spotted. But Sean’s bad—’
‘I told you not to go back to the lock-up.’
‘We’ve got to get Sean help, Mr P.’
‘Sean can wait. He’s cocked it up.’ There was cold fury in his voice. After a pause, he said, ‘Now listen. Wait there till I send someone over. He’ll take care of Sean. Then you get that van out of there. Drive it out, well out. Find a place, and torch it. Do you hear me? Torch it.’
‘I hear you, Mr P.’
‘Good. And don’t call me again, understood? Just sit tight, then do it.’
Twenty minutes later, there was a sharp rap on the steel door of the garage. Danny peered through the window slit and saw the Spaniard, Gonzales, in his black leather jacket, standing to one side. He reached down and slowly pulled up the shutter.
Gonzales looked at him with cold eyes. ‘Donde?’ he said.
‘What?’
Gonzales pushed by him and walked to the van and looked in. He nodded, satisfied.
‘He’s hurt bad,’ said Danny. ‘He needs to see a doctor right away.’
Gonzales ignored him, and went out and got into his car. Starting it, he pulled quickly into the garage, forcing Danny to jump to one side. As he got out he opened the rear passenger door, then walked over to the van.
‘We’ll have to be careful with him,’ said Danny. He peered in. Sean was slumped on his back across both seats; he was quiet now, breathing but barely conscious. The blood on his trouser leg had congealed into a black mess.
Without saying a word, Gonzales reached in and put his arms roughly under Sean’s back, propping him up.
‘Mind his leg!’ Danny shouted. ‘He’s been wounded.’
The Spaniard ignored him, pulling Sean back out of the door until only his legs remained on the seat. He lowered his arms and wrapped them round the wounded man’s waist, then with one movement he hoisted him out of the car, leaving his legs dangling on the floor. Sean screamed as the Spaniard lowered him onto the back seat of his car, where Sean fell, moaning continuously.
‘Jesus, will you take care? He’s been shot.’
Gonzales turned suddenly and stared at Danny. There was a cold menace in his look that frightened the younger man. In heavily accented English, Gonzales said, ‘You know what to do with the van. Get going.’
An hour later Danny was driving through County Armagh. This was border country, traditionally sympathetic to the IRA. He took a spur, halfway between Portadown and Armagh, that led to the old Moy Road and stopped a mile short of a farm, where he’d been taught how to fire a pistol by three veteran Provos. That one didn’t jam, he thought bitterly, wondering how Sean was getting on. If they’d been given a decent weapon, they’d have done the RUC bastard properly – he’d never have had the chance to fire himself.
He turned now onto an old cart track, half overgrown and muddy from the winter rains. It wound up a tree-lined hill, ending suddenly in a small sandy lay-by sheltered from the wind by the side of the hill; more importantly, it was sheltered from view by a small copse of young oaks.
Once it had been the site of a crofter’s cottage, but the remaining structure was crumbling and decrepit now, more like a cairn of loosely piled stones than a cottage – only a few tiles and some bare timbers hinted that it had once had a roof. Behind it the ground tilted sharply downward. Locals had used the slope as a tip, dumping old refrigerators and broken bikes, even a sofa, its stuffing billowing out through a tear in the fabric. Wedged halfway down, against the trunk of an ancient tree were the charred, skeletal remains of a burned-out car.
Danny parked the van at the top of the slope. He was anxious to get the whole business over with, and to get away before anyone came. He checked the inside before getting out, to make sure he’d left nothing important in there. His fingerprints and Sean’s would be all over it – as well as their DNA, which the forensic wizards would find, given half a chance.
But they wouldn’t have that chance. He took a full can of petrol out of the van and sloshed half of it over the floor at the back, then over the cab, making sure the vinyl seats were soaked. Standing back he struck a match from a box of Swan Vestas, and tossed it onto the driver’s seat. It went out as he threw it. Anxious now, he took a dirty handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and dangled the corner into a pool of petrol lying on the cab floor. Then, retreating a little, he lit the handkerchief and tossed it into the open window of the cab. Flames jumped up with a sudden whoosh, and he backed off a good twenty yards, and watched as the fire spread. Soon the whole van was ablaze.
He set off down the winding path, heading for the old Moy Road, where he’d hitch a lift into Moy itself. No fear of anyone who might pick him up in this area talking to the PSNI. From there a minicab could take him to Portadown, where he’d catch a train for Belfast and home. A long roundabout journey, but necessary if the evidence of the botched assassination was to disappear for good. Thank God he’d booked the whole day off; no one at work would be wondering where he was. His mother would be worried, but he didn’t dare ring her. Not after that rocket from Piggott. She’d known he was up to confidential business anyway.