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Brigadier General Whelan, Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland, looked at his subordinate warily.
‘I can give you an additional Special Support Unit from 39 Brigade’s patch,’ he replied.
‘RUC cowboys? But sir, I’ve lost four men in four months, all to the same sniper. Morale is rock-bottom, and the local players know it. I’ve already had three complaints this week alone. The boys are taking it out on the population.’
Whelan held up a hand and said: ‘This is a bad time of year, Martin. The marching season is almost upon us. We’re overstretched, and Whitehall won’t hear of us bringing in another battalion.’
‘It’s not another battalion we need. I was thinking of something more compact.’
‘The Intelligence and Security Group?’
‘Yes. To be frank, sir, we’re getting nowhere. Our own Covert Observation Platoon has drawn a series of blanks. I don’t have the resources within my own patch to tackle this problem. We need outside help – and I’m talking help from our own people, not the RUC.’
‘Hasn’t E4 come up with anything?’
‘Special Branch guards its sources like an old maid her virginity. They’re terrified of compromising the few touts they have. No – we need a new approach. This South Armagh Brigade is the tighest-knit we’ve ever encountered. It’s better even than the Mid-Tyrone one was a few years back. The Provos seem to have taken the lessons of Loughgall to heart. They’re very slick, and they’ve recovered amazingly quickly. This Border Fox now has up to three ASUs operating in close support. We need to take out not only him, but at least one of those back-up units.’
‘Take out? You rule out more conventional methods of arrest, then?’
‘I believe it would be too risky. No, this bastard is fighting his own little war down near the border. The South Armagh lot need to have the carpet pulled out from under them.’
‘And your men need a kill.’
Lieutenant Colonel Blair, commanding officer of 1st Battalion the Royal Green jackets, paused.
‘Yes, they do.’ He would not have been so open with any other senior officer, but Whelan was a member of the ‘Black Mafia’ himself – an ex-Greenjacket who had done his stint as CO of a battalion in South Armagh.
‘This is irregular, Martin – you know that. You’re asking me to initiate an operation in a vacuum. Usually it is the Tasking and Coordinating Group that comes to me…’
‘More Special Branch,’ said Blair with a wave of his hand. ‘This is not an RUC problem. It is the Green Army that is taking the casualties, my men that are out there in the bogs day after day and night after night, while the RUC conduct vehicle checkpoints and collar drink-drivers.’
Whelan was silent. It was true that the uniformed ‘Green Army’ had been paying a heavy price lately for the patrolling of the border, or ‘Bandit Country’ as the men on the ground called it. And the Border Fox had made headlines both in the UK and America. He was a hero to the Nationalist population and their sympathizers across the Atlantic. Nine members of the Security Forces had been killed by him in the last eighteen months, the last only a few days ago. All of them had been killed by a single bullet from a high-calibre sniper rifle that had punched through the men’s body armour as though it were cardboard. The capture of that weapon, more importantly, the termination of the Fox’s activities, were obviously desirable.
But Whelan did not like authorizing what were in effect assassinations. He had no moral qualms about the issue – the Fox had to be stopped, and killing him was an effective way of doing that. But he hated giving the Republican Movement yet another martyr. Political consideration had to be taken into account also. If he authorized an op against the Fox he would have to inform the Secretary of State – in guarded terms of course – of what was about to happen.
More importantly, there was the feasibility of the operation. Intelligence in 3 Brigade’s Tactical Area of Responsibility was poor. The IRA brigade in South Armagh seemed very tightly knit and so far all attempts to cultivate informers had failed. It was impossible to proceed without good intelligence, and seemingly impossible to obtain that intelligence. Hence the Security Forces were powerless, for all their helicopters and weapons. And so the Fox continued his killing unhindered, which was why he had Martin Blair in his office, seething with baffled anger.
‘Damn it, Martin, don’t you think I see your point? But how can we proceed with anything when we have nothing to go on? Special Branch has drawn a blank, and your own covert op has turned up nothing.’
‘Then we must create our own intelligence’, Blair said doggedly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Give me the Int and Sy Group. Let them loose in my patch. They may turn up something.’
‘That’s a hell of a vague notion.’
‘They’re doing bugger-all at the moment except interminable weapons training. I got that from James Cordwain himself. The rest of the Province is as quiet as the grave.’
Whelan winced at his subordinate’s choice of words. Major Cordwain was OC of the combined Intelligence and Security Group and 14 Intelligence Company. ‘Int and Sy’, or more often just ‘The Group’, was another name for Ulster Troop, the only members of the SAS who were based permanently in the Province. Fourteen Intelligence Company was another pseudonym for a crack surveillance unit drawn from all units in the army and trained by the SAS themselves.
‘Int and Sy’s job description does not include charging in like the bloody cavalry, guns blazing.’
Colonel Blair smiled. ‘Tell James Cordwain that.’
‘Indeed.’ Cordwain had taken over the Group less than a year ago. He and his young second in command, Lieutenant Charles Boyd, were a pair of fire-eaters. Cordwain had been with 22 SAS in the Falklands and was an expert in covert surveillance and the tricky business of so-called ‘Reactive Observation Posts’ – known to the rest of the army as Ambushes.
‘You’ve spoken to Cordwain about this, then?’ Whelan asked sharply. He did not like officers, even fellow Greenjackets, who flouted the chain of command.
Blair stiffened. ‘Yes, sir, I did – informally of course.’
‘And what was his reaction?’
‘He thought he might have a way in.’
‘What is it?’
‘An operative of ours, based in Belfast at the moment. He used to be part of Int and Sy but MI5 have become his handlers. Been here for over a year, and has a perfect cover.’
‘His name?’
‘Cordwain wouldn’t say. But he thinks it would be possible to relocate him, weasel him into the South Armagh lot.’
‘He must be an exceptional man.’
‘Actually, Cordwain says he’s one of the best he’s ever seen. Parents were from Ballymena, so he has the perfect accent for starters. They were in the South Atlantic together.’
Whelan got up, crossed the office to the sideboard and the decanter that stood there. He poured out two whiskies into Waterford-crystal tumblers and offered one to Blair.
‘Bushmills – the Irish. Bloody good stuff.’
They drank. Whelan looked out of his office window, past the ranks of Landrovers and Saxon armoured personnel carriers, over to where the perimeter wall rose high with netting and razor-wire; it was supposed to intercept RPG 7 missiles or Mark 12 mortars, the Provos’ current flavour of the month.
‘We are skating on thin ice here, Martin,’ Whelan said.
‘Yes, sir, I know. But my men are dying.’
‘Yes. But MI5, they’re tighter with their operatives than E4 is with its information. They may not want to let us play with this man.’
‘Cordwain thinks it may be possible to bypass MI5, sir.’
Whelan spun round. ‘Does he now? And how would we do that?’
‘This man, he has a personal reason for wanting to see the Border Fox brought in. One of my young subalterns was a relative of his.’
‘Ah yes, I remember. That was tragic, Martin, tragic. So it’s revenge this man wants. That may not make him totally reliable.’
‘Cordwain seems to think he is, sir, and Boyd, his 2IC, is willing to provide back-up.’
Whelan set down his glass and leaned over the desk until his face was close to Blair’s.
‘You seem to have thought this out with unusual thoroughness, Colonel.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I am not used to being given fully-fledged covert operational plans by my battalion commanders. Is that clear, Colonel?’
‘Perfectly, sir.’
Whelan straightened.
‘It may be we will be able to keep this under an army hat. I would certainly prefer it that way – and you say that Special Branch can give us nothing. But we must be even more discreet than usual – and I am not talking about the Paddies, Colonel. I will speak to Cordwain. I will give him the necessary authorization…’ As Blair brightened, Whelan frowned thunderously and cut him off.
‘But mark me, Martin, this conversation never took place. This man of Cordwain’s will be disowned by every security agency in the Province if he so much as sniffs of controversy. And Cordwain’s back-up will be on their own also. If the press – or God help us the Minister – ever find out about this we’ll be crucified.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘Be sure that you do, Martin.’ The General tossed off the last of his Bushmills with practised ease. Now you’ll have to go, I’m afraid. I have a bloody cocktail party to go to. I have to rub noses with the Unionists and win some hearts and minds.’
2 (#u67ef5937-12e6-55a2-912f-ba60479f5c51)
Belfast
The Crown Bar, opposite the much-bombed Europa Hotel, was quiet. It was two o’clock on a weekday afternoon and there seemed to be only a handful of men in there, seated in the walled-off snugs and nursing Guinness or whiskey, leafing through the Belfast Telegraph.
One of those men was Captain John Early of the SAS. He was a squat, powerful figure of medium height who appeared shorter because of the breadth of his shoulders. He could have – and frequently did – pass for a brickie on his lunch hour or whiling away the days of unemployment. His hands were blunt and calloused, the arms powerfully muscled. His face was square, the close-cropped hair sprinkled with premature grey at the temples and a badly broken nose making him look slightly thuggish. But the blue eyes were intelligent, belying the brutality of the face. Despite the haircut, he did not look like a soldier, certainly not a holder of the Queen’s Commission. And when he quietly asked the barman for another pint his accent bore the stamp of north-east Ulster.
There was no trace left of the clean-cut young officer who had joined the Queen’s Regiment back in 1977, or even of the breezy subaltern who had agonized through SAS selection eight years previously. Turnover of officers among the SAS was much swifter than that of troopers; they rarely served more than five or six years with a Sabre Squadron. Early had come over with Ulster Troop in 1984 and gone undercover two years later. He was an ‘independent’, operating now under the aegis of MI5, but he never forgot where he had come from. If he died here, his name would be inscribed on the Clock Tower in Hereford, where all the dead of the SAS left their names.
Early sipped his whiskey patiently. He was waiting for a friend.
James Cordwain came through the door. Early recognized him instantly, though he hadn’t seen him in years. The hair was longer of course – all the SAS seemed to believe that long hair was obligatory when serving in Northern Ireland. But he still had the aristocratic bearing, the finely chiselled jaw and flashing eyes. He looked every inch an officer. Early sighed, ordered another drink and took it into a snug.
It was ten minutes before Cordwain joined him, smiling.
‘You’re not an easy man to get hold of, John.’
‘The name is Dominic, Dominic McAteer,’ Early told him sharply. Cordwain winced.
‘Why did we have to meet anyway? A phone call could have done it.’
Cordwain shook his head, regaining his self-assurance quickly. ‘I had to talk to you in person.’
‘Talk then.’
Cordwain looked at him, slightly offended. They had been good friends once, in the Falklands. Early seemed aged, irritable beyond his years. It was undercover work that did it, Cordwain decided.
‘I have a Q car down the street. We can talk in there,’ he said. A Q car was the army’s name for an unmarked vehicle.
‘Are you mad? Every dicker in the city knows a Q car when he sees one. We’re safe enough here. I know the barman. He thinks I’m just another unemployed navvy and you’re in here about a job.’
‘Which, in a way, I am.’
‘So tell me about it.’
Cordwain tried hard not to look smug. ‘It’s on.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as you can relocate. We have an opening down in Cross. Construction.’
‘Not on a fucking army base, I trust.’
Cordwain grinned. ‘Not likely. No, a local firm, Lavery’s, has been given a contract – new bungalows.’
Early’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s a front, is it?’
‘Yes and no. The contract is real enough, but our people are the ones behind it, buried three layers deep. Get yourself settled in, and then we’ll start working on a channel of communication.’
‘I take it Special Branch came up with fuck-all.’
‘They don’t even know you exist.’
Early nodded. He liked it that way.
‘What about our friends the spooks?’ he said, referring to his handlers in the Intelligence Service.
‘You’re on leave, seeing a sick auntie. They think you’re back across the water. They’ll be mightily pissed off when the truth comes out though.’
‘Fuck them. This is my last caper, James. After this I’m getting out.’
‘I’m sorry about Jeff. I take it he’s the reason behind all this.’
Jeffrey Early had hero-worshipped John and gone into the army as soon as he could, following in his revered older brother’s footsteps. But the Border Fox had killed Jeff three months ago. One bullet, taking off most of his head. Early had not even been able to go to the funeral.
‘I want this bastard, James. I really want him.’
Cordwain nodded. ‘Don’t let hatred cloud your thinking, John. Remember, your job will be identification. I provide the Button Men.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Charles Boyd for one. You don’t know him, but he’s a good man.’
‘I don’t want him tripping over my shadow, James. This South Armagh lot are the most formidable we’ve ever encountered. They sniff the colour green and I’m dead. Tell your man to keep his distance.’
Cordwain was not happy. ‘They have to provide effective back-up.’
‘So long as they don’t compromise me.’
