We were patrolling as a pair, in company with a second vehicle, never far from it, in case one or other suddenly needed help. Martin was frequently on his radio: ‘Six Five, roger. We’re just going to Sebastopol… We’re passing Berlin.’ Every now and then our partner vehicle would drive past in the opposite direction, as the pair wove intricate patterns through the sordid, run-down streets. Again and again Martin said, ‘The whole of this road is divided, Green Nationalists on one side, Orange Protestants on the other.’ But he kept emphasizing that most of the population was perfectly normaclass="underline" ‘There’s so many decent people here. The proportion of bad ones is very small.’ Nevertheless, he agreed that he was constantly on the lookout for familiar faces, trying to spot known players and work out their patterns of movement, and after an hour I felt the entire place was poisoned by hatred.
Back in the station, Pat and I went off to have a piss. The nearest gents was tucked away on the floor below, and Martin came down to show us the route, leaving us to find our own way back. As we emerged, a man in civvies was coming along the corridor towards us — quite an old guy, with grey hair — and as I glanced at him I felt a prickle of recognition. In the same instant his face gave a flicker as he recognized me.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I know you, surely.’
‘Yes — we met in Hereford.’
It was Chief Superintendent Morrison, the RUC man who’d talked to our course at LATA.
‘Geordie Sharp,’ I said, ‘and this is a colleague, Pat.’
We all shook hands, and Morrison said, ‘Have you a moment for a chat? This is my office, right here.’
He pointed at a door beside us. Instinctively I said, ‘D’you want to go on up, Pat? I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.’
Pat got the message and thinned out. The chief ushered me into his office, large but bare, and gestured at a chair in front of the desk. ‘Take a seat. Just come over?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, I hope you have a successful tour.’
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. Was it just innocent good wishes? I said, ‘Thanks.’
He started fiddling with a glass paperweight. Then, looking steadily at me across the desk, he said, ‘I believe you lost your wife in the Queensfield bomb.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m so sorry. I know it was an own-goal, but there’s no consolation in that. Very likely the device would have killed even more people if it had gone off where they meant it to. I think I told you over in England, we’re up against real bastards here, evil bastards. What I didn’t say to your course was that I’ve lost my own brother to them, and his son, my nephew. So I can imagine how you feel.’
‘Thanks,’ I repeated.
‘Sympathy’s not much use. I’ve learnt that over the years. But you have mine, and if there’s anything I can do to help, you’ll let me know.’
Even as he spoke, an idea was opening up in my mind.
‘That’s very good of you,’ I said, and then I added casually, ‘I don’t suppose you know who did it — who was responsible for the bomb?’
‘I’d have to check. Why?’ His lined, grey face softened into a smile. ‘D’you fancy going after them or something?’
‘No, no.’ I forced a smile in return. ‘I just thought it might help somehow, to know.’
‘Of course. And if I did find out any information, what would I do with it?’
‘Maybe you could send it care of my father-in-law. That would be the safest.’ I gave him the address in Helen’s Bay.
‘Good enough. And now maybe you’d better rejoin your colleague. I’m pleased to have seen you again.’
I went back to the ops room feeling like a conspirator, busy with my own thoughts — only to find that the others were talking about a subject of intense interest to me: the way in which leading players protected their houses. Many had closed-circuit TV cover front and back, Martin was saying, and most reinforced their front doors with steel plates and big, heavy, old-fashioned iron bars which could be swung or slotted into place at night, making it impossible to force an entry. Often they’d have an inner door as well, with an air-lock between the two in which they could scrutinize visitors. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, they’d have a cage or grille of heavyweight weldmesh, so that they could seal off the upper floor. That way, they were safe from all but the most determined attacks.
The troop’s eight intercept cars were monsters in disguise. They looked quite ordinary, but under their sedate exterior lurked mighty engines and any number of refinements. Some of the engines had merely been hotted-up, but others had been replaced by more powerful units altogether. The extra punch was needed because the cars were carrying a huge amount of weight in the form of armour — at the front, along the sidepanels, and behind the two back seats. To manage all this, as well as four blokes and their gear, rifles, shotguns, assault kits, door-charges and so on, the springs and shock-absorbers had been uprated. Even so, the belly-plates were liable to ground when you went over bumps like sleeping policemen, sending out showers of sparks.
Inside each car there was a comprehensive comms system, with the radio tucked away in the glove compartment, a pressel-switch down by the handbrake, and a microphone slotted into the sun visor. For normal covert operations we’d listen through our earpieces, but there was also a loudspeaker fitted into the glove compartment for when the shit hit the fan. ‘If you get into a chase, and the villains know you’re after them, there’s no point in trying to stay covert, so you switch to the speaker,’ somebody explained. ‘Equally, if you start to take incoming, and the windscreen goes, your earpieces are the last thing you need.’
I didn’t appreciate quite what the cars would do until I went out for a familiarization drive. The one I had was an old Rover 2000 known as the Bluesmobile. It looked drab and decrepit, as if it was well past its scrapby date, and when we started out I thought I was driving a tank, so heavy did it feel. But as soon as I got out on to the ring road and put my foot down — that was something else. In a few seconds we were doing 150 m.p.h., with a good bit in hand, and only a buildup of traffic far ahead made me ease off. Thereafter I took things more steadily and concentrated on getting familiar with the radio system. One lesson I learnt from the run is that a G3 is a brute of a weapon to take in a car: too long to fit down neatly beside the driver’s seat, and difficult to bring up quickly. I’d already heard of an occasion when a G3 had slipped so that the muzzle landed on the accelerator pedal, and the driver suddenly found himself heading off into the sunset at a great rate of knots. Now I saw the wisdom of bringing an HK 53, which would fit comfortably under the seat.
Our familiarization was supposed to last for the first couple of weeks, but in the event things turned out less leisurely. One evening I was in my cabin, with Eric Clapton keeping the world at bay, when through the music I heard a call on the tannoy: ‘Standby team into the briefing room.’
In half a minute all ten of us had assembled.
Tom Dawson, the second-in-command, was in charge. ‘Right, lads,’ he began. ‘We’ve got a fast ball. Operation Eggshell. It’s a babysitting job, with a few strings attached. There’s a hit going down on a senior political figure, timed for 2230 tonight. The boss is at TCG, getting details. Basically it’s a city job, in East Belfast. We need four guys to babysit and six to deploy in the intercept cars.’
He turned to me. ‘Geordie, you’re to command the house party. The address is Knocklofty Park. There’s no time for an on-site recce, so you’ll need to take a good look at the map and get your arses down there a.s.a.p. Covert approach from wasteground behind. If you want to grab something to eat you’ve got twenty minutes. Final briefing at 2000, and roll immediately after.’