'He'll have to take his chance,' said the CO firmly.
'Your responsibility for him will cease when he leaves Winson Green, so his continuing health won't be your concern.'
That ended the complaints, and by cracking on in such positive fashion the CO got everything Squared away within the hour, so that the meeting broke up soon after six.
The arrangement was that the intercept would go down the following night: Friday 28 May. The police would close all three roundabouts on the Ludlow bypass at 2215 and divert traffic, on the grounds that the road had been blocked by an accident. The convoy, consisting of a van with unmarked police cars fore and aft, would reach Point Alpha as close to 2225 as the drivers could manage.
By then our intercept cars would be parked nose-to- nose at an angle across the road half a mile south of Point Bravo, their panic lights flashing as if they'd had a crash. Our rammer van would be waiting in the turning space above the road. When the convoy approached, the lead driver would slow down as he saw the stranded cars ahead and report a blockage over his radio. At that moment our van would start its run down the ramp, aiming to hit the front of the meat wagon…
By 1830 I was feeling pretty knacketed. It was five nights since I'd had a proper sleep and I was keen to get nay head down for more than two or three hours at a stretch. All the same, Whinger and I were determined to call on Pat in hospital, because we knew he'd be fretting about his chances of regaining full fitness, and we reckoned he could do with a bit of moral support.
Besides, once Plan Zulu went down, it might be days before we got another chance to see him.
After a quick bite to eat I phoned Pat's wife, Jenny, to see if there was anything she'd like us to take along, but it turned out she wasn't feeling very sympathetic.
'Take him a bottle of arsenic pills,' she said. 'That'll sort him.'
'OK, I get the message.'
I turned to Whinger and said, 'Cow,' then I called the hospital to make sure they'd let us in. There was the usual palaver about 'no visitors', but I bluffed our way with the sister in charge by telling her that we were special mates of Pat's, and got her to agree that we could spend a few minutes with him.
On the M4, Whinger gave me details of the safe house, which sounded pretty good. Laurel Cottage, he said, was made of brick and solidly built. It was small, with three rooms (including the bathroom) downstairs and three above, but it had been modernised recently and had a new kitchen and a Calor-gas hot water and heating system. The windows were adequate if not great — lockable, but not double-glazed. Whinger had been through all the drawers in the kitchen and removed a couple of receipted bills which gave the names of local tradesmen. He'd also checked the immediate area for estate agents' signs with giveaway phone numbers on them. The house was in a secure position, isolated as it was up a lane on the side of a hill, and there was a tumbledown wooden garage about thirty metres from the door. The place wasn't overlooked, and there were no other buildings in sight.
The only slight worry was one other house, which stood beside the lane where it joined the main road; anyone there would be in a good position to monitor comings and goings. But enquiries had revealed that this second building was also let intermittently, and at present unoccupied.
Comms wise, the cottage was well placed — not in a hole where radios and mobile phones wouldn't function. Whinger had taken along with him a technician from Box, who'd installed a special phone containing an encrypting device and a chip that prevented anyone tracing a call back. Tests had shown that all forms of communication functioned welt.
As we drove, I tried to imagine myself in Pat's position. When I got my arm smashed in the Gulf War I'd been in a fairly bad state myself, but I never thought that the wound was serious enough to threaten my career and basic fitness. A shattered femur was something else, and I knew how daunting it must be. At least he was in good hands. I knew that Army and ILAF surgeons train to deal with bullet wounds by operating on pigs anaesthetised and shot at the secret defence establishment at Porton Down.
I'd maple several visits to Wroughton before, to have my arm checked while the bones were re-knitting, and as we drove up the long approach road to the old airfield on top of the downs I thought once again how strange it was that a service hospital should have so little security. There was no fence, no barrier, no guardroom; anybody could proceed straight to the front entrance.
Mind you, you needed to be fit to find the person you were looking for, because the building was about halfa mile long, with wards leading offcentral corridors on its two floors, and it was a fearsome hike from one end to the other.
Hospitals bug me. The gleaming surfaces, the smell of disinfectant, the bright lights, the impersonal passages and doors… the whole environment seems alien, exactly the sort of world you spend your life trying to avoid.
After a marathon tab, we eventually came on Pat in one of the high-dependency units — a small side-ward with an tLAF police corporal sitting guard outside the door. I'd had the sense to conceal my flask-shaped half- bottle of Johnny Walker against my stomach inside my loose shirt, so we got past the guard and the sister without hassle.
It was a shock to see such a physical guy as Pat laid low, flat on his back, amid a tangle of drips and drains.
His left leg was in plaster, with a cage of stainless steel pins coming out through the case above the knee, and drain-tubes leading out of it. The sight of all the gear took me straight back to the hospital in Baghdad, and the Iraqi surgeon who'd threatened to blind me with an anaesthetic syringe before he operated. Of course, I also thought of Bully-boy Khadduri coming to the gaol and hammering on my plaster cast with his swagger stick. At least he wouldn't torment any more patients.
As we went in, Pat turned his head and gave a big grin. But although his brain was working fine, his responses were slow, and I could see that he was quite heavily sedated.
'They haven't killed you yet,' I said.
'They keep trying.'
'Lot of pain?'
'Nothing. It's fantastic.' He pointed at a little domed rubber pump, taped to his left arm just above the wrist.
'Whenever I get the gyp I give myself a shot with this thing.'
'What is it?'
'Morphine, I reckon. Got a bag of it up there some where. Want to try it?'
'Thanks a lot,' said Whinger. 'Time for a shot.'
'Look.' I brought out the Scotch. 'This is for when you're on the mend.' I laid the bottle at the back of the cupboard in the cabinet beside his bed and put a box of Kleenex in front of it.
'Brilliant!' Pat said. 'Thanks, Geordie.'
We began to chat about his journey home and things at Hereford, then uddenly he remembered my own problem and said, 'Aye — what about the family?'
'Bit of a breakthrough. The PIRA sent a taped message from Tracy advancing the deadline for us to hand their man over, and we're preparing a response.
We may get some action quite soon.' I'd already decided not to pass on details about Plan Zulu, just in case Pat started muttering in his sleep.
As I was talking I saw him get a twinge of pain, and he primed his morphine pump a couple of times. By the time I'd told him a bit about the wash-up after Ostrich I could see him losing concentration; so I was surprised when he suddenly said, quite loud, 'I hope you told them about the priest clearing his throat up his fucking tower.'
'The mullah! I did, Pat. Don't worry. I told them about your. diversionary explosion by the gate too, and the IPG blowing shit Out of the building — the lot.'