Pray for Us Sinners Read online

  On the night of Monday, November 6, 1972, the army erected an eight-foot-high wire fence with forty-one gates around the centre of the city. No vehicles were permitted to pass except in emergencies.

  Behind the fence, the department stores—Robinson and Cleavers, the Athletic Stores, and Brands and Norman’s—and such smaller businesses as travel agents, jewelers, bookstores, tobacconists’, cafés, and restaurants, cowered.

  This Monday morning, as he did every day, a blind man had come to sit on a folding stool outside Robinson and Cleavers, cloth cap on the pavement before him. With a fiddler’s bow he drew sweet, melancholy tunes from a saw grasped between his knees. The shoppers and the businessmen, students and labourers, nurses, and all whose lawful pursuits took them to the city core strode by him, hiding in their own thoughts, all pretending that there was no danger, all wishing fervently to get away from Belfast. A few—a very few—dropped coins in the saw player’s cap as they hurried by. None lingered to listen.

  And over all, behind the barricade, the green-domed City Hall towered silently, brooding like the commander of the besieged garrison of a veldt town in the Boer War who wondered not if, but when, the next assault would come.

  A young, fair-haired woman, smartly dressed in a cashmere sweater and plaid miniskirt beneath a lightweight, reversible raincoat, waited until one of the RUC constables at a gate in the fence finished rummaging through her handbag. There was nothing inside to raise anyone’s suspicions. A wallet, dark glasses, several tissues, some elastic bands, powder, mascara, keys, loose change, a rosary, a Saint Christopher medallion, and a lipstick. Max Factor’s “Coral Pink.”

  Nothing out of the ordinary at all, and yet, as Moira Ryan waited, she could feel the moisture in her armpits, on the palms of her hands. But Brendan had said it would be all right. And Moira trusted Brendan McGuinness.

  “Carry on, miss.” The policeman returned her bag and watched her hurry through, staring at the swell of her breasts under her mackintosh, wishing he’d been allowed to body search her.

  * * *

  Brendan McGuinness waited in the back of a windowless Morris Eight van. He’d driven it from Belfast to a deserted airfield near Kirkistown, on the Ards Peninsula in County Down. He shifted on the rough seat, wondering for a moment how the girl was getting on. She should be through the security fence by now. Another small operation, like the attempt on the life of that UVF bastard, Bertie Dunne, but one that would give the Brits something else to think about. He had to keep the bastards on the hop. The more of them that were preoccupied with ensuring the everyday safety of the civilian population, the fewer resources they would have to interfere with the major coup he had been planning—planning with only one other man privy to his thoughts—since McGuinness had got word of the opportunity to strike a devastating blow.

  But he needed more detailed information about the target.

  Where the hell was his contact? He should have been here twenty minutes ago. Brendan McGuinness rapped his fist against the paneling of the van’s side. He heard another car coming closer. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, taking reassurance from the Smith and Wesson automatic beneath his fingers.

  The engine stopped. He heard a door slam, footsteps on the concrete surface of the old runway, and a knocking on the van’s back door. McGuinness bent forward to open the door.

  He saw a short, heavy-set man, hair trimmed in a crew cut. He could not make out the man’s features as he climbed in and shut the door.

  “I’ve got it,” he said.

  Brendan forgot his irritation at the man’s tardiness. “All of it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Tell me.”

  * * *

  Moira Ryan passed the saw player, pausing to drop a tenpence coin into his cap, hearing his “thank you, madam.” She wondered how a blind man would know she was a woman. He must have heard the click of her high heels.

  She joined the line of shoppers outside Robinson and Cleavers and waited her turn to be searched again—this time by a private security guard—entered the store, and made her way to the women’s clothing department. A shop assistant helped her take off her beige raincoat, admired her cashmere sweater, and gave advice about this spring’s fashions. It took her twenty minutes to pick out four dresses she wanted to try on.

  The assistant showed her to a changing room, apologized because there were so many other patrons this morning, told the young woman to take her time.

  Moira let herself into the cubicle, carrying the dresses and her raincoat over one arm. After closing the door, she hung the dresses on a peg on the chipboard wall and turned her raincoat inside out. When she slipped the coat on, the outside was dark green.

  She twisted her long hair into a knot on the top of her head and secured it with elastic bands from her now-open handbag. Her hair was soon covered by a head scarf. The tissues were next. She stuffed them into a pocket of one of the dresses, a pretty paisley-patterned one, hanging on the hook.

  Moira hesitated as she removed the dark glasses and the Max Factor “Coral Pink” lipstick. She took a deep breath, twisted the base of the lipstick, listened until she heard a crunching noise, and slipped it into the nest of tissues. Then she put on the sunglasses and let herself out of the cubicle.

  The assistant was at the far side of the department, serving another customer. As Moira passed, she saw the shopgirl glance in her direction, hesitate, and shake her head, clearly not recognizing the short-haired woman in the green coat and sunglasses.

  Twenty-five minutes had elapsed from the time she entered the store to the moment she left and joined the crowds on the street outside.

  * * *

  The same twenty-five minutes had brought a satisfied smile to Brendan McGuinness’s one-eyed face. He had heard even more than he had hoped for when he had said, “Tell me.”

  “You’ll like this,” the squat man said.

  “Get on with it.”

  “Right. First, the technical stuff is just about set. One of our people with the GPO has finished his job at the Brits’ end.”

  “Good.”

  “The equipment for your end’ll be ready when you move to your new quarters.”

  McGuinness nodded. “I’ll look after that. The move’s next Sunday.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What about the other operation?”

  “I don’t know the dates yet, but one of them’s coming, just like I told you last week.”

  “Look. We can’t mount an attack if we don’t know the time and place.” McGuinness let an edge of irritation creep in.

  The man opposite did not seem to be bothered. “Hold your horses. I’ll look after that. My lot’ll be handling the security, so they will. As soon as I hear, you’ll hear, all right?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m not fucking well sure. Are you sure the sun’ll come up tomorrow? But the British are having their general election on the twenty-eighth. Both Ted Heath and Harold Wilson have said Northern Ireland will be a priority if their party gets in.”

  “That doesn’t mean either one’ll come here.” The news about the new surveillance equipment was good, but this uncertainty was not what McGuinness wanted to hear.

  “Jesus Christ! Do you think that’s the sort of thing an English politician would be yelling from the rooftops?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t I just tell you my mob are to be in charge of security for a prime minister’s visit? The boss had me in yesterday and told me to start planning for it. My men are running round like bees on a hot brick. Do you think he’d waste our time like that if it wasn’t going to happen?”

  “No.”

  “So, stop getting your knickers in a twist. It’s money in the bank one of them will come, and I’ll give you the word the minute I hear. You start thinking about how to take him out.”

  It was then that a slow smile of grim satisfaction split Brendan McGuinness’s face from ear to ear.

&n
bsp; “Now,” said the man, crouching as he rose, “I’m away the fuck out of here. I’ll be in touch.”

  Brendan nodded, his mind already focused on how he would arrange to have a British prime minister killed. And it didn’t matter to him, not one bit, if the bugger was Conservative or Labour.

  He sat back against the wall of the van, barely hearing the slam of its back door. He’d need to give his agent a while to get clear, but he’d not waste the time. There was planning to do.

  It was unlikely the PIRA could get a sniper close enough, he thought. It would have to be some kind of explosive device. He prayed the consignment of the new Czech plastique, Semtex, would get through on time.

  * * *

  What Moira Ryan had left behind in the pocket of a paisley-patterned dress was much more primitive than Semtex. It was a variant of the Durex bomb, invented in Derry in 1970. Sulfuric acid, sealed in a vial of candle wax, was placed inside a condom—usually a Durex condom, hence the name. The sheath was placed inside a container full of sodium chlorate, a common weed killer. When the device was squeezed, the acid was released, and it ate slowly through the latex, giving the bomber time to escape before it ignited the chlorate.

  Devout Catholic members of the PIRA refused to use these devices because condoms were proscribed by the Church. Moira had had no such scruples, and in her device the candle wax had been replaced with a small glass ampoule. Twisting the base of the lipstick advanced a screw that crushed the glass.

  She was safely at home when the latex gave way. A sheet of flame set fire to the tissues, and in seconds the four dresses were ablaze with greedy tongues licking at the dressing-room walls.

  A startled shopper noticed tendrils of smoke escaping from beneath the changing-room door. She screamed and pointed.

  The shop assistant ran to the door and opened it. Flames roared out like dragon’s breath, roasting her alive.

  Outside, the blind man caressed the notes of “The Town I Love So Well” from his saw, but the tune was smothered by the hoarse shouts of the shoppers pouring from the store’s front doors and the “nee-naw, nee-naw” of emergency vehicles passing through gates in the eight-foot-high fence.

  ELEVEN

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13

  Marcus had been here in this semi for a week and a day. He sat in an armchair, wearing jeans and an American T-shirt, and stared at a blown-up photograph of rhododendrons on the wall—garish blooms frozen in time.

  His funeral had been four days ago. Major Smith had attended, full of condolences as the army honour guard lowered a ballasted coffin. It must have been very hard on Mum, traveling by herself. He wondered if she would be back in Texas by now.

  He’d had time to stifle his disappointment that his father did not attend. Sometimes Marcus wondered what kind of a man his grandfather had been—must have been pretty bloody Victorian to have raised a son who could bury his feelings so deeply he deliberately avoided events that might call for some outward show. Grandpa Richardson had died before Marcus was old enough to really know him, but maybe that was why Dad was such a perfectionist, such a hard man to please, had been for as long as Marcus could remember.

  Like the day Dad had wanted a six-year-old Marcus to walk on the old seawall beside Billy Caulfield’s rowboat jetty in Bangor. The scene played in Marcus’s mind, clear as if it were yesterday.

  They’d been out together fishing. When they came ashore, Daddy said that rowing was hot work and asked if Marcus would like an ice cream.

  “Yes, please.”

  “You’ll have to earn it.” Daddy stopped in front of a low sandstone wall. “Let’s see you walk on the wall.”

  Marcus swallowed. He knew the big boys walked on the coping stones, but it was an awfully long way down to the rocks below. “On there?”

  “Come on. Up.” Daddy wrapped his arms round Marcus and hoisted him. “It’ll be easy if you don’t look down.”

  Marcus peered over the edge. Below—miles below it seemed—waves broke over the jagged shore.

  “Marcus, come on. Don’t be a sissy.” His father’s voice was taking on the tone he always used when he found some error in Marcus’s homework, when he’d say, “If there’s an easy way and a hard way, you’ll find the hard way.”

  Marcus stared at his feet. The wall seemed only inches thick, and the rocks …

  “Are you going to walk?”

  “I can’t…”

  “Hold my hand.”

  “No. I want down.”

  “Take my hand.”

  “No, Daddy. I’m scared.”

  A clock on the living-room wall made a whirring noise, bringing Marcus back to the present, yet he could still hear his own words—“No, Daddy. I’m scared”—could still remember his tears as Daddy lifted him off the wall and strode off for home. No ice cream. Stupid bloody wall. He’d even gone back on his own—three days later—scrambled up, and, heart in mouth, walked. He’d never told anyone, but he’d done it.

  When he had grown old enough, he played rugby, just like his father, and found to his delight that he enjoyed his ability to ignore the possibility of being hurt. He played well enough to represent his university, but not well enough to be picked for the provincial side, never mind Ireland. His father had been capped twice.

  When the time had come to choose an army specialty, that disregard for danger led him to bomb disposal. He’d tested himself again and not found himself wanting for courage—until his brush with death. Now, with a bit of luck, he would be able to move on to the SAS with no loss of face. That bit of luck would come if he worked hard enough at his new assignment. He was working as hard as he could under the tutelage of Major Smith and when he was left alone to digest the information about Canada and the oil industry, the Catholic Mass. He’d even learned the Catholic kids’ doggerel version of the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, serve us all a piece of cod.” The childish substitution was certainly more comforting to chant than the line that belonged in its place: “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

  Notes were strewn on the table, along with the green folder. Mike Roberts’s folder. He hadn’t mastered every detail, but he was getting there. It helped that Major Smith refused to call Marcus anything but Mike or Roberts. It was a funny feeling, having two men living in the same body, having to stifle one and encourage the other. Perhaps this is how schizophrenics feel, Mike thought.

  He looked at his watch. 0855. Major Smith would be here at 0900. Exactly. Marcus glanced back at the Timex he’d been given to wear. Mike Roberts would have a cheap watch, but Marcus missed his Rolex. It had been a present from Dad when Marcus finished his seven-month course at the Kineton School of Ammunition. Dad attended that passing-out ceremony. He handed over the watch with a gruff “well done,” and Marcus glowed.

  “Where are you, Roberts?” The major called from the hall.

  Marcus checked his Timex. 0900. Exactly. “In here, sir.”

  The major sat in his usual armchair. “Getting a handle on the bandits?” He pointed at the opened briefing notes. “Good. You’ve only got three weeks until your finals.”

  “Finals, sir?” It sounded like an examination.

  “And if you don’t want to end up like some of the Freds, you’d better pass.”

  “Freds, sir?”

  “Drop the ‘sir.’ Name’s John.”

  The invitation to dispense with military formality was a concession. “Thank you. Go on, John.”

  The major lit a cigarette. “Thought I’d give you an idea of what you’ll be up against—and how not to do it. Right. Freds. That was a right regal cock-up. The Freds were the special detachment of the Military Reconnaissance Force.”

  He stood and walked to the mantel, leaning against it like one of Marcus’s old lecturers. “The Provisional IRA are a suspicious bunch. We couldn’t even send uniformed patrols into their parts of the city for quite some time. The buggers set up no-go areas. Our lot backed off. The Military Reconnaissance Force, MRF
, was formed in 1971. There were forty regular soldiers in plain clothes who looked for PIRA men on their own turf.” The major looked wistful. “Brave lads. If any one of them was rumbled, he was on his own.”

  “Those soldiers were the Freds?”

  The major shook his head. “No, they were the MRF. The Freds were the special detachment of the MRF. Clear?”

  “Not really.”

  “Look.” The major held out his left hand. “MRF. Plainclothes regulars.” He held out his right hand. Ash fell from his cigarette onto the carpet, and he rubbed it in with the toe of an immaculately polished black shoe. “Keeps the moths out.” He looked back to his outstretched right hand. “Special detachment. Ten ex-Provos, working for us. Para captain was in charge.” He made a derisory sound. “Freds.”

  “How on earth were Irish terrorists persuaded…?”

  The major’s grin was feral. “Gave them the choice of working for us or going down for some very long, very, very hard time.” He drew on his smoke. “They worked bloody well, too, until the silly buggers in charge got ambitious.”

  “You’ve lost me again, John.”

  “The Freds were billeted in these semis. Their handler lived next door in the other half. Tight security. We let them out in armoured personnel carriers with an intelligence crew. The Provo, ‘Fred,’ would look through the slits. When he spotted one of his mates, the soldier-photographer took a couple of quick candids. After a patrol, Fred would put names to faces. Worked like a charm, and we took quite a few unpleasant characters out of circulation”—he shook his head, as a father might when a small child has done something particularly foolish—“until some stupid sod thought that the Freds might do even better if we let them go home and mingle with their old comrades.”

  Marcus handed the major an ashtray.

  He tapped the ash. “The information officer of D Company, Second Battalion of the Provos, began to suspect a chappie called Seamus Wright.” He gave a small, exasperated snort. “Why his handlers let him go and live back on Leeson Street with his wife, I’ll never know. I’d rather not think about his interrogation.” The major’s smile held no sympathy. “I believe it lasted for five days.”