'How d'you know?'
I told them about the episode with the music on the car radio, and when I said the piece was something called Leonora number three the Boss got it immediately.
'I know,' he said. 'Beethoven wrote three different overtures for his opera Fidelio. Couldn't decide which to use. There's one called Leonora number three. Great stuff. Come on, now. If the guy's into that, he can't be all bad.'
'He is,' I insisted. 'He's shit from head to toe.'
It's surprising what three hours' sleep can do for you, especially if you're running on adrenalin. When I finally got my head down in my room in the sergeants' mess it was nearly four o'clock, and once again I felt I was back at the beginning of the nightmare, on the first night after the kidnap.
But come seven o'clock, and a good breakfast, I felt a new man.
By 0745 the cast from the night before had reassembled in the incident room. The CO kicked off with, 'light then, Geordie, what have you got for us?'
I'd already jotted down a few headings in my notebook, in the hope of making things reasonably clear, but I was glad to find that one of the int office's gofers was present with his laptop to make a proper written record.
'Mission,' I began. 'The mission is obviously to recover the hostages held by the Provisional IRA. To give Special Branch and the other security forces more time, we propose to simulate our willingness to carry out a shoot on the Prime Minister at Chequers…'
I ran through place, date and time as if this were a normal operation, and then listed the steps that I expected to take:
1. Contact PIP, A, agree to carry out shoot.
2. Peceive instructions for collecting weapon.
3. Collect weapon.
4. Move up to Forward Mounting Base in vicinity of target location.
5. Test-fire and zero weapon.
6. Negotiate with PIRA to set final R.V site for exchange of Farrell and hostages. Deal will be that Farrell will authorise release of hostages by mobile phone soon as he sees the target is down.
7. Make Farrell arrange escape from P,V site: helicopter to be hired by PIPA.
8. Carry out early-morning shoot as detailed, in Farrell's presence.
9. Fly out of target area. Land at intermediate IV, switch to vehicle, drive to final PV.
10. Exchange prisoners.
11. Security forces follow up tracking devices, recapture Farrell and accomplices.
The CO was at his sharpest, challenging each point as I brought it up, probing for weaknesses in the plan and scouting for problems.
'What have you got in mind for an FMB?' he demanded.
'We need another holiday cottage. The one we're in now has been perfect for down here, but it's going to be too far from the job. We need something on the edge of the Chilterns, within a few miles of Chequers.
Not too close.'
'Not so easy up there,' he said. 'We don't have any tame house-owners in that area.'
After a pause he asked, 'What's the point of zeroing the rifle, if you're not trying to hit the target anyway?'
'Farrell will insist on it. He'll want to come with us when we do it — he's that sort of guy, very practical.'
'Where will you do it, then?'
'Depends where our safe house is. When we know where we've landed, we can pick an out-of the-way spot in the country and go out there with a target at first light. I've been looking at the map: there are plenty of big, deserted valleys up there.'
The CO had adopted his favourite thinking attitude, forehead in hands, ears sticking out well to either side, and elbows on the desk. 'The PIRA will know when the shoot's going to take place,' he said. 'On the morning, they may send dickers to stake out the park.'
'I thought of that. We're going to need back-up on site. There's a farm just behind Point D. Here.' I twisted the map round so that the Boss could see it fight way up. 'Brockwell Farm. It would be ideal if we could get some of the lads in there under cover of darkness the night before. Then, if Farrell did try to do a runner, or if anyone tried to lift him, we'd still be covered…'
Mac, the ops officer, was his usual sarcastic self. 'Of course, all this may be so much moonshine,' he said. 'If SB find the hostages first you can forget all this fancy caper.'
'Christi' I exclaimed. 'If that happened, nobody would be happier than me. I'd be over the bloody moon. If I never saw Farrell again — if I didn't have to go back and meet the bastard again now — I'd be chuffed to bollocks.'
So it went on. The CO was pretty sceptical at first, but, as usual, he fancied having a go at something outrageous. When I left camp at 0830, I had his permission to carry on planning for the time being, and the promise that once again he would take things to the highest level in Whitehall.
Back at the cottage, I gave Farrell short shrift. When he asked where I'd been I told him to mind his own business. Then I brought out the PIRA orders. While I read out the main points, he listened with a variety of expressions passing across his face. Sometimes he looked amused, sometimes contemptuous, sometimes interested — but he never seemed particularly surprised.
'Last night you told me this was all shit,' he said.
'At first I thought it was.'
'But now you'll go along with it?'
'Have to,' I replied. 'I don't see I've any alternative.
I've drawn the zero option.'
'The boyos have changed their minds, then.'
'What about?'
'The plan for the shoot. They were going to have it in London. This looks more like business. Better than trying to drop a mortar into the garden of Number Ten Downing Street, anyway.'
'What have you fellows got against the Prime Minister?el demanded. 'He seems a harmless enough guy to me.'
'Harmless!' Farrell nearly shouted. 'Harmless, begod!
He's the head of the British Government, is he not? It's him who's the architect of repression in Northern Ireland. The number of murders that fucker's got on his hands — Holy Mary, they can never be avenged. A bullet's too good for him!'
'If we hack this,' I said, 'and the shoot goes down, I don't want your people crowing about how they got an SAS man to do their dirty work for them. You get me?'
Farrell nodded.
'The Regiment would deny it anyway,' I told him.
'They'd rubbish any story that came out. But publicity's the last thing I want.'
'Don't kid yourself,' said Farrell scornfully. 'If the job gets done, the PIRA will claim a major success. They're not going to give the credit to some prat in the Brit FORCES
'All right, then. Find out our RV for collecting the weapon. We need to go for that tonight.'
Using my mobile, he went through to Belfast and started one of his usual hectoring exchanges. The prospect of action seemed to have put new life into him; he was half-way back to his former aggressive self, as though he were taking charge of the whole operation.
The upshot of the conversation was that we would get our instructions for the pick-up through an intermediary in Ulster. We were not to call the PIRA on the mainland any more — we were only to ring Belfast.
'They're getting jumpy,' I said to Whinger when we were alone in the kitchen.
'Don't blame them,' he answered. 'I am too.'
'This fucker Farrell,' I said. 'He's starting to give me the shits. I've got a horrible feeling that he's invincible, and that somehow he'll get the better of us in the end.'
'Come on, Geordie,' said Whinger. 'Pigs might fly.'
From exposure to countless previous Whingerisms I knew that meant 'Never say die', so I just said, 'Good on yer, mate,' and put an extra spoonful of sugar into my tea.
As I sipped the piping-hot drink, I couldn't stop thinking about an account I'd read in a magazine of the murder of Grigory Rasputin, the peasant monk who bewitched the Russian royal family in the years before revolution. Rasputin had an amazing hold over the Empress, Alexandra. Some people said he was secretly screwing her, others that he was the only person who could comfort her son Alexei, who was mortally ill.