Walter Brenckmann had emphasised that although junior members of the ‘President’s Party’ might hold informal bi-lateral conversations with members of the Irish delegation the President had no plans to speak to any member of that party. While the President could not be seen to be openly cold-shouldering the Irish ‘peace delegation’ — that would look bad back home especially while the ‘Supreme Commander’ furore raged — he was sensitive to and respectful of the British government’s position.
“The President is coming to the United Kingdom to reinforce our alliance,” he said. “And of course, to publicly lay this Supreme Commander business to bed once and for all.”
Tom Harding-Grayson sighed.
This, of course, was the other fly in the ointment.
Other than that General Harold Keith Johnson was the Chief of Staff of the US Army, the Foreign Secretary personally knew nothing about the man and there would be little opportunity to sound out the opinions of the British Chiefs of Staff prior to the Supreme-Commander designate of All Allied Forces in Europe stepping off the plane with Jack Kennedy sometime late tomorrow afternoon at Brize Norton.
Tom Harding-Grayson cleared his throat.
“I take it that President is aware that our security people have not yet intercepted the IRA active service responsible, we believe, for smuggling three prototype General Dynamic Redeye shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles into the United Kingdom?”
“Yes. The President has been advised that these missiles pose only a very slight risk to aircraft in flight. Which is why the US Army specified a two year program of evaluation trials before considering the Redeye system suitable for general deployment.”
The Foreign Secretary was not so sanguine.
“In my experience what military men think will or won’t work often bears very little relationship to reality, Walter.”
“As I understand it a Redeye has to be launched from virtually point blank range at the tail pipes of a jet to have any chance of hitting it. Besides, I hardly think that even the IRA would fire a rocket at the President’s plane!”
Chapter 57
Seamus McCormick had kept the plan simple because he knew there was no way he could sell a complicated plan to the two IRA killers who had viewed him with sullen, mistrustful eyes as he spoke.
He would assemble all three Redeyes.
Frank Reynolds and Sean O’Flynn would steal a vehicle and drive south with one missile and an M171 launcher. They would find a ‘firing point’ somewhere in the Cotswolds to the north or north east of Brize Norton; they had no chance of getting anywhere near optimum range so there was no point bothering. Their job was — some time during the middle of tomorrow, any time from mid-day to about four o’clock in the afternoon would be fine — to shoot their single Redeye in the direction of RAF Brize Norton.
That was all they had to do.
If they elected to remain in England that was their business; likewise it was up to them if they tried to make a ‘home run’ return to Ireland.
He would take the other two Redeyes and the Bedford lorry and head down to Cheltenham.
“What’s your plan when you get to Cheltenham, friend?” Sean O’Flynn asked menacingly.
“You don’t need to know that.”
“We do,” Frank Reynolds snarled.
“No, you don’t.”
Brize Norton, Cheltenham and Prestwick in Scotland were the three busiest civilian airports in the United Kingdom and all three were also emergency bases for the RAF’s surviving V-Bomber Force. V-Bombers were routinely dispersed to each location. Unlike Prestwick, both Cheltenham and Brize Norton were protected by batteries of long-range Bristol Aeroplane Company Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles and locally by emplaced guns of every imaginable calibre from twenty-millimetre all the way up to 3.7 inch barrels. Moreover, both of these southern ‘civil hubs’ sat within five to ten mile deep defence exclusion zones.
Seamus McCormick planned to penetrate the Cheltenham DEZ by masquerading as a missile technician delivering spares for the Bloodhounds positioned in the hills overlooking the eastern end of the two-and-a-half mile long runway of the air base which had been laid across the footprint of the old race course. He rated his chances as about sixty-forty, against. With the two IRA men in tow he had no chance of getting inside the DEZ.
More importantly, there was no point breaking into the Cheltenham DEZ if when he got there he did not have anything to shoot down. If an emergency or a scare could be engineered at Brize Norton then all 'high priority' landings would automatically be switched to Cheltenham for several hours guaranteeing a plethora of possible targets. Two IRA men randomly shooting off a Redeye in controlled Brize Norton airspace — or even getting caught inside the DEZ before they got a chance to shoot their missile — was hardly a sure fire way to engineer an ‘emergency’; but it was the best thing he could think of in the circumstances.
McCormick contemplated his options.
“Think of this as a grouse shoot, boys,” he suggested. “I need you two to be my beaters. I need you to kick the bushes and flush me some nice fat helpless birds into the air so that I can ‘bag them’.”
He smiled thinly.
“Unless either of you boys has got a Centurion tank in your pocket there’s no way the three of us can shoot our way into the Cheltenham DEZ. As for Brize Norton,” he shrugged, “if we try to do it the other way round we all end up dead; three dead men lying on the ground with three unfired Redeyes with British squaddies smoking Woodbines and laughing amongst themselves. Do it my way and you boys might get home to Dublin to tell the tale of how you tweaked John Bull’s nose.”
“What about you, friend,” Sean O’Flynn growled.
“How do you mean?”
“After this? What about you?”
Seamus McCormick looked the IRA assassin in the eye.
“Whatever happens, there is no after for me.”
Chapter 58
Joe Calleja had not really been awake when the ward orderlies had got him out of bed, cleaned him up and started to dress him in a somewhat over-sized civilian suit. He had never owned, nor foreseen the need to own, such a suit. True, he owned a comfortable old jacket — with patched elbows — and a tie that he sometimes wore to church to placate his Mama, but a suit? No, never. Nowhere in Das Kapital did it say that a good Marxist had to own, or in fact, had any right to own a suit. Admiralty Dockyard lackeys and British oppressors wore suits. Not good honest Communist dockyard electricians like Joseph Calleja!
A wheel chair — a rickety, squealing contraption — had been rolled, clanking and jolting into the ward.
“I can walk!” Joe had protested.
Actually, he very nearly fainted in attempting to stand up.
The men in the other beds had waved and cheered, not in any way derisively he had realised, as he was slowly, hurtfully pushed out into the corridor.
“Where are you talking me?” He asked belatedly.