Zero Option

Talking to this guy, whoever he was, Farrell was fairly polite. Eventually he was given another number and hung up. While he dialled again, although I knew the SB monitors would pick it up, I watched the first four digits and saw that they were 0802 — a mobile.

The moment the call was answered, Farrell's manner changed. He became arrogant and hectoring, just as he had been on the night at the barn outside Belfast. He wasted no time on explanations, just yelled, 'You'll get me out of this shit-hole first thing in the morning. You know that?'

Whatever the other guy said only seemed to enrage him further. 'When I say tomorrow, I mean tomorrow!' he shouted. 'Upgrade.your fucking ideas, man, or I'll see you regret it! I'll give you quarter of an hour to sort something. Then I'll be back.'

I noticed Farrell was trembling as he hung up.

'Jaysus,' he said, 'the fever is on me again. I thought I had the better of it too…'

I put the back of my hand on his forehead, which felt burning hot. 'Your wounds, is it?' I said.

'It is.'

'What happened?'

'Some fucker shot me.'

'R.eally! Where was that?'

'South America.'

'You get around.'

Farrell's face contorted, as if in sudden pain. 'Listen,' he said. 'I need the bog.'

'Go on, then. Tony'll take you.'

Tm not going with him. I need some privacy. Take these cuffs off.'

'No way. Tony's watched plenty of guys taking a dump. You can shit in company or not at all.'

Farrell gave in grumbling, and while the two were in the bathroom I said quietly to Whinger, 'Have you got those tablets the Med Centre packed?'

'Sure.'

'Fetch a couple out, then, and a glass of water. We need to get something down the bastard. We can't have him dying on us.' Special Branch had found out from the prison hospital what antibiotics Farrell had been getting, and the Med Centre had made up some of the stuffinto plain white pills that looked like Paracetamol.

When Farrell reappeared, I gave him two.

His response was predictable. 'What — are you after poisoning me?'

'Don't be daft. Alive you're worth a lot to us; dead, you'd be worth fuck-all. These are just aspirin. Can't do you any harm. And listen — when you get back on to your man in a moment, I want to speak to him myself.

That's the only way to get ourselves straight with details of the meeting.'

Farrell took the tablets and drank the water. A few minutes later he put the call through, and while he was talking I quietly asked Tony, 'Did he want to shit?'

'Sure did!' He held his nose and scrunched up his eyes. 'Boy, has he got the runs.'

'Got to watch him,' I went. 'We don't want him getting too sick to travel.'

After a few exchanges Farrell handed me the phone.

I put my palm over the mouthpiece and asked, 'Who is it?'

'Feller called Malcolm.'

'Hi, Malcolm,' I said. 'What's the score?'

'The M25, northbound,' went the Belfast voice.

'Between junctions fourteen and fifteen. One mile north of fourteen there's an emergency phone on a pillar. Be there on the hard shoulder at eight forty-five in the morning — eight forty-five on the dot. Our people will pull up fifty yards behind you. The hostages will walk forward towards you. You'll bring our man back. The exchange will take place when the parties meet in the middle.'

I repeated the details carefully, then had to check something: 'Farrell was saying tomorrow but it's today, Saturday, we're talking about?'

'It is. And no more than two of you in the car.'

'Your man plus two.'

'All right. And no surveillance, either.'

'You're joking!'

'Just so you know.'

'What vehicle will you be in?… Hello?… Hello?'

The man had gone.

'No point in asking,' said Farrell. 'They probably haven't got the wagon yet. They'll nick some old banger in the morning, and come in that.'

TEN

The night wasn't exactly a rest cure. First I'd had to put fresh dressings on Farrell's wounds. A furrow through the flesh on the inside of his upper arm was healing well, but the twin punctures, fore and aft, at the edge of his abdomen lust below the bottom rib, didn't look so good. I could see that somebody had made an exploratory incision — presumably to clear out debris drawn in by the bullet — but there was an angry flush round both ends of the wound, and some suppuration coming out through the stitches. Even though medical training had killed the last of my squeamishness, I didn't enjoy patching up this particular patient; I'd rather have stuck a knife through his ribs and be done with it.

For the rest of the night we chained him to one of the iron bedsteads in the double room, wrist and ankle.

To make doubly sure he didn't do a Houdini on us, Tony volunteered to sleep in the other bed.

With Farrell safely shackled upstairs I took a walk down the drive with my mobile phone, and called the incident room from the middle of the wood. Ever since the intercept I'd been shitting myself with worry that we might have hurt or even killed somebody, so when I got through to Fraser, my first question was, 'Was everyone OK on the bypass?'

'Fine, fine,' he answered. 'No problems at all.'

'What about the guys in the van? Both vans.'

'A few bruises. A couple of vehicles bent. Otherwise, nothing.'

'That's great. Who were those guys in the Lexus?'

'We don't know yet. They cleared off on foot into the hinterland. By the time the cops got there they'd gone. The car'd been stolen in Shrewsbury.'

'So we don't know if they were players or joy riders?'

'The last, we reckon.'

'Well — hell. They gave us a fright and a half. And did you monitor those three calls?'

'We did. We got some numbers to work on. What about your lot?'

'We're all in good shape.'

'Your guest behaving?'

'More or less. But listen, we've set up the exchange for the morning…' I confirmed details of the arrangement and asked for back-up, both from SB and from the Regiment.

'Crafty bastards!' Fraser said. 'Typical, to call the 1LV on a motorway. Especially there. At that point the M25's four lanes in each direction, and at that time of the morning it'll be heaving with traffic, even though it's the weekend. Hell of a place to put on surveillance.'

'I know. But for Christ's sake don't do anything obvious. Don't have a car on the hard shoulder anywhere, not even on the opposite side. The slightest thing could put them off.'

'Leave it to us,' said Foxy. 'We'll be.watching you.

And once you've done the swap, we'll be going for a quick intercept of the PIRA vehicle.'

'OK. Can I speak to Yorky, please?'

Yorky came on, and when I had gone through things with him he echoed Fraser's disgust about the choice of location. 'Bah gum, it's bang under the flight-path out of Heathrow.' He paused. 'We'll have a chopper airborne, but it'll have to stand right off. There's no way it can come overhead around that area.'

'I know,' I said. 'For Christ's sake keep everyone out of sight.'

'Fear not, Geordie. I've been in this business longer than you have.'

'I know. I'm getting jumpy, that's all. Any media leaks anywhere?'

'A reporter from a local paper got on to the police in Ludlow, and they told him there'd been a minor accident, that was all. That choked him off.'

I didn't get to sleep until nearly three o'clock. And all too soon the alarm went and Doughnut came in with a brew. Farrell, he told me, claimed he hadn't slept a wink, but Tony knew this was garbage because he'd heard the man snoring. I was glad to hear that Farrell had made no fuss about putting on the clothes we'd bought for him: black jeans, a white T-shirt and a dark- blue sweat top. Of course, he hadn't much option but to wear them: he couldn't carry on in his prison kit of striped shirt and brown trousers, and his own clothes, such as they were, had been left in a bag inside the police meat wagon. Having discovered from the screws at Winson Green that he had a thirty-six-inch waist, we'd deliberately gone for the next size up so he'd have to winch the trousers in with the belt that had been doctored to contain a tracking chip. When we got him he'd only been wearing a pair of cloth slippers on his feet, and so he also went happily for the new trainers we'd supplied. They looked like brand-new leeboks, but they'd had a little expert attention around the heels.