Zero Option

I went and looked down over the side of the trailer.

Pat's eyes were shut, so I gave him a tap on the arm and shouted, 'Stick at it, mate. There's going to be a doctor on the Here. Only an hour to go.'

The morphine had put him half-under, but he mustered a bit of a smile and muttered, 'Fuck 'em all!'

I raised a thumb, held my fist above his head for a moment, gave him a tap on the shoulder and moved away.

When I called the head-shed on the secure radio link, I was put straight on to the CO. I told him about Norm and Pat, but there was only one subject he seemed interested in: was I sure that the target was dead?

'As fucking mutton, Boss,' I told him. 'He had two rounds through the head, one from the front, one from the side. His brains are spattered half-way across Libya.

We've got photos to prove it.'

'Good work,' he conceded. 'And nobody got a good look at you?'

'Only the target. No one else.'

'Brilliant. We'll see you back here presently.'

EIGHT

When I heard that Tracy had been on the phone the night before my heart leapt, but the surge of hope lasted only a few seconds.

'I'm afraid she made the call under duress,' Foxy Fraser told me. 'The message was very downbeat. Listen for yourself.' He switched on a tape deck, and when Tracy's voice came loud and clear out of the speakers it nearly cracked me up. I had to get hold of myself before I could grasp what she was saying. Apart from the emotional shock of hearing her apparently so near, there was something odd about the rhythm of her speech; it didn't sound natural, and I had to run through the tape twice before I realised she'd been reading out a prepared script.

'Geordie, listen,' she said. 'You have to come and get us. You have to make the arrangement very soon. We can't wait any longer. If you haven't made the arrangement by midday on the first of June they are going to kill Tim. Tim first, then me. Geordie, I love you. You can't let us die. For God's sake send a message through Sinn Fein in Belfast.'

I clenched my fists under the table, took a deep breath and looked across at Fraser.

He twitched his head quickly to one side, chin out and back, as if to say, 'I'm feeling for you, mate.'

'What do we do?' I asked. 'We've got to move now.'

Fraser cleared his throat. 'We had one false alarm,' he said. 'Not sure;what it was — whether the tout was trying to make a quick buck, or what. We got a tip that the hostages were being held in a flat in Earl's Court not one of the known addresses. We put the place under surveillance immediately. That night three men came out at ten o'clock. Nobody we knew. While they were in the pub a lock-picking specialist slipped in and took a look round.'

'And?'

'Nothing. There was nobody else at home, no sign there ever had been. Our operator left a microphone in the ceiling light, but it's yielded nothing. The men are just Paddies working on building sites. All they talk about is prostitutes and race-horses. It was a bum steer.'

'This call…' I gestured at the tape, 'was it a bluff?'

'With the PIRA you can never tell. They're so blasted ecratic. Obviously they're trying to crank up the pressure. Somebody in Belfast is probably putting the screws on the London boys. We need to take the threat seriously, whatever.'

'What's this about Sinn Fein?'

'We do sometimes send messages through their office in Belfast.'

'Well, can you do that now?'

'Of course — when we've decided what to say.'

'In that case I'm going to make a move.'

Fraser glanced at me sharply. 'What are you proposing?'

'You know that scheme I told them about the last time?'

'For springing Farrell from a police convoy?'

'Exactly. I'm going ahead with it.'

'Geordie!' Fraser stood up and moved towards me with an anxious expression on his face. 'There are some things you can do, and some you can't. This is '

'Listen!' I cut him off. 'It's my kid's life that's at stake.

I'm not going to sit around and let him get killed.

We've got to get off our arses and act.'

'I wouldn't say we're sitting around, exactly. We've got a big operation going on out there.'

'Yes — and what's it producing? Two thirds of three fifths of fuck-all.' Seeing Fraser colour up, I added, 'I didn't mean that personally. I'm not trying to criticise; I know how cunning these bastards are. But they're not getting away with this one.'

I found I was pacing about the room: something I don't usually do. I made myself sit down again and said, Tve thought it through, and it's perfectly possible.'

'I don't see it,' Fraser replied. 'Apart from anything else, you'll get yourself kicked out of the Regiment.'

'No, no — I 'haven't explained properly. 1 changed my mind. We'll do it with the Regiment. Their support will be essential.'

Fraser looked blank. 'I still don't get it. Don't tell me your commanding officer's going to sanction your breaking the law of the land, setting a dangerous criminal free.'

'Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Everyone's got to agree, of course.'

'Who's everyone?'

'The Regiment. Yourselves. The prison authorities.

The regular police. Then, I suppose, the Home Office and the Home Secretary. Maybe ultimately the Prime Minister.'

'I think you're getting a bit carried away.' Fraser was staring at me as if I'd gone round the twist. 'So what exactly do you propose doing?'

'I'm calling it Plan Zulu. In training or on operations we always start off with Plan A and Plan B — Alpha and Bravo. This is the ultimate plan, the last resort.

Therefore it's Plan Z for Zulu.'

I started pacing around again. 'We have a big O- group — collect tbgether all the people I've mentioned, and explain the scheme to them. Then, at an agreed time on an agreed day, the prison authorities move Farrell from Birmingham to somewhere else — it doesn't matter what the destination is supposed to be, as they don't have to tell him. The prisoner'll be in a closed van, and won't know where he's going.'

'He could be going down the road to Long Lartin,' said Fraser.

'Where's that?'

'The nick near Evesham where quite a few IRA prisoners are held.'

I stared at the Special Branch man, amazed that he seemed to be entering into my plan.

'Great!' I went. 'Presumably they don't have any obligation to tell him where he's going.'

'No. When they ship people like that and don't give a destination, it's known as putting them on the ghost train.'

'Got it. So they bring him out. We get guys from the Regiment to drive the police cars and the prison van the meat wagon, you call it, don't you? — and at a predetermined spot we ambush the convoy, ram the van, force it off the road and stage a realistic battle, with plenty of bangs and rounds going down. We — myself and two or three of the lads — grab Farrell and take him to a safe house. As far as he'll know we're renegades from the army, doing this on our own initiative. I'll tell him I'm so desperate I've taken leave and brought in some civilian friends to help.'

Fraser had his eyebrows raised in a sceptical arch. 'Go.'

'Then, from the safe house, we'll contact the PIRA and tell them to set a rendezvous for an exchange. But we'll also put a bug into one of Farrell's shoes, or his belt, and make certain that he can be trailed. Then we'll hand him over, do the swap, secure Tim and Tracy, let Farrell think he's got clear, and have the police nab him again.'

'And throw a bridge across the Irish Sea at the same time, just so you can go after him quicker.'

I glared at Fraser. He seemed to have lost heart again.

'Look,' I said, 'you don't appear to realise that all this is shit simple. We're trained to the eyeballs in ambush techniques. We have the cars to do an intercept, we have the weapons to stage a battle, and we can set up a safe house in our sleep. Apart from back-up on the ground, we'll have a helicopter airborne but standing well offout of sight, so that Farrell won't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting away. Nobody else has to do anything except put him in a van and let us drive him a few miles out of Birmingham into the country. All we need is the co-operation of the authorities.'