Adrian McKinty - The Cold Cold Ground

“He might be the key figure in ending the hunger strikes. He might be the key figure to ending the Troubles.”

I listened. I understood. I was made to sign a document that I was not allowed to read. I was made to sign The Official Secrets Act. A new team came in and it was all explained to me again.

I signed more documents. A third team came in. It went on until ten o’clock at night. Finally they were satisfied. I would not talk. I would not prosecute Freddie. I would return to my bicycle theft case and never speak of this again.

They asked me if I understood the big picture. I told them I understood the big picture. A middle-aged woman in a grey skirt and white blouse appeared.

“In that case,” she said as if resuming a conversation, “we can let you go, Sergeant Duffy.”

I stood up and looked into her brown eyes. “There’s a condition,” I said.

Her mouth opened and closed like a Lough Neagh roach wondering if you’re going to throw him back or not. “You’re not in a position to-”

“You tell Freddie that the killing has to stop. He’s done enough to leave his trail. The killing has to stop!”

“I’ll tell him.”

They dropped Laura and me in the harbour car park in Carrickfergus next to my BMW which was already there.

She was shivering. “Cold?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Did they make you sign all those forms?” she asked.

I nodded. “What will happen to us if we talk?”

“I don’t know.”

“What will we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s get a drink,” she suggested.

We made it to the Dobbins for last orders. I got two triple whiskeys and two double gin and tonics. We sat by the fire. The rain came on outside. “What’s going to happen to Scavanni?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She gulped her gin and tonic.

“Drink up, folks!” Derek boomed.

“I’ll walk you home,” I said.

She shook her head. “Let’s go to your house. I want to be with you tonight.”

I didn’t feel sober enough to drive the car so I left it in the car park.

“So that’s that, he’ll never be punished for any of that?” she wondered.

“It’s best not to think about it any more,” I said and my voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

We walked up Taylor’s Avenue, Barn Road, Coronation Road. We went inside #113. I lit the paraffin heater. We went upstairs and hugged under the blankets and closed our eyes and maybe even slept until the men in balaclavas came down the path and sledgehammered the front door and stormed violently into the house.

I reached under the pillow but the revolver was still downstairs in my raincoat pocket. I put my hand over Laura’s mouth before she could scream.

“Get under the bed. Don’t make a sound. You’ll be safe.”

I heard the men thumping up the stairs.

I had three or perhaps four seconds.

If I hesitated I/we were dead.

I grabbed a fire iron from the malfunctioning fireplace and ran naked onto the landing. I reached the top of the stairs at the same moment as the first gunman. His balaclava was impeding his field of vision but that didn’t really matter as he was a microsecond too slow onto the final step.

I smashed the fire iron into his head, screaming as I did so.

Metal into bone.

He crumpled instantly and fell backwards down the stairs into gunman #2.

Gunman #2, however, put his hand out and stopped his mate from knocking him down. He shot at me twice with a big.45 that banged horribly in the enclosed space of the staircase. The two.45 rounds missed me by inches.

I ducked my head back round the staircase wall and desperately tried to think of a plan. They’d kill me if I went out either of the front bedroom windows and there might be a man waiting out the back too.

Another.45 round smashed into the yucca plant at the top of the staircase. Gunman #2 had recovered and was walking slowly up the stairs.

“C’mon, Gusty!” a voice said, a voice I recognized as Shane Davidson. So it was Billy White and his crew come to kill me before I told the world what I knew about them.

Behind me Laura came to the bedroom door.

“What can I do?” she asked.

I ran to the end of the landing and picked up the five-foot-tall paraffin heater by one of the handles at the top.

“Take the other handle!” I said.

The heater was never supposed to be moved when fuelled up and it was never supposed to be moved when burning.

We carried it along the landing to the very edge of the stairs. It was at full capacity and it blistered and burned our hands.

“Now, get back!” I said lifting it from the rear by both handles.

It was searingly hot and the enamelled stainless steel scalded my chest.

I screamed as I heaved it to the very top of the stairs.

The scream stopped Shane in his tracks, half way up.

He saw me and the heater, didn’t compute it for a moment. He fired his gun but the.45 slug only smashed into the heater’s plate steel spraying paraffin over him and the unconscious man beside him. I tumbled the heater at him and dived back behind the stair wall but I wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the blast as the heater crashed into Shane and the glass flue shattered and all the fuel ignited at once. There was an explosion and the shock wave flung me against the landing wall.

I tried to stay upright but I couldn’t manage it and I fell down the stairs into the horror of burning men and white-hot metal.

I went head over heels into the glass phone table by the front door.

An eviscerated, burning Shane slid down the stairs on top of me. I yelled in horror and kicked him off.

I managed to stand and through the open front door a machine gun opened up on me from the street.

I dived to the carpet and crawled into the hall as AK-47 rounds tore up the vacuum above my head and broke and span and yawed off the walls and the ceiling.

Splinters, sparks, Libyan 7.62x39mm tracer rounds racing right through the house and across Carrickfergus towards their destiny in Belfast Lough.

I did a quick triage to see if I was in one piece.

Pain everywhere but there was nothing broken and I wasn’t on fire.

“Sean!” Laura screamed from upstairs.

“I’m all right!” I yelled.

I could see the rest of the hit crew now in a black Transit parked in front of my house. A guy with a Kalashnikov in the passenger’s seat and that wasn’t the worst of it — the van’s side door was open and there were two more men inside priming a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

An RPG.

A Land Rover killer.

But then I saw my SMG. The Sterling M4 9mm sub-machine gun that had been sitting on the hall table for two goddamn weeks.

I grabbed it and snapped in the curved clip.

Thirty-four rounds between me and death.

Thirty-four rounds and skill. I had one crucial advantage. I had put the hours in on the range and they, obviously, were firing their weapons for the first or perhaps second time in their lives.

I got to my feet, unfolded the stock and braced the weapon against my shoulder.

I put my left hand on the ventilated barrel casing and walked into the valley of the RPG.

I squeezed the trigger and fire spat from the barrel and the weapon hummed and the open bolt sang like Ella Fitzgerald.

I walked down the garden path looking through the iron sight. Bullets whizzed all around but I was aiming, they were shooting. I aimed first at the men with the grenade launcher.

I hit my target and Death opened their eyes and they fell into his radiance, blood pouring from head wounds, chest wounds, ripped arteries and veins. Eternity revealed to them its mysteries and they tumbled backwards into the van and dropped the RPG launcher at their feet.