James Deegan - Once A Pilgrim - a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller

They might have made it, too, but for the fact that a mixed RUC/Army VCP had been set up at the far end of Clonard Gardens.

The sound of the gunfire was masked and confused by the ambient noise, but several of the soldiers and their RUC colleagues had instantly turned their heads in the direction of the Falls.

Then the screaming pitch of the Sierra’s engine confirmed that something was going down.

And now they saw the car race into the Clonards.

‘Army!’ shouted Gerard.

His brother had already seen them, and was yanking the wheel right into Odessa Street. But even as he began the turn, he knew he was in trouble. The Ford wasn’t designed to take ninety degree corners on slick, sleety roads at approaching fifty miles per hour, and as it screeched and skidded over the wet tarmac the tyres lost their grip.

The car careened into a parked truck, bounced back out into the street, and clipped the kerb on the opposite side.

Now completely out of control, it mounted the pavement and smashed through the low wall in front of one of the squat, red-brick terraced houses, burying its bonnet in a bay window.

There it sat for a few moments, engine revving madly in neutral, until Sean Casey leaned forward and switched it off.

Ciaran O’Brien had been thrown forward between the front seats. He lay still and silent, blood pulsing from his neck in eversmaller spurts.

‘Come on, Gerry,’ said Sean, scrabbling and reaching into the front foot well where the AK had ended up. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘What about Ciaran?’

‘Fuck him, he’s dead.’

‘We need to torch the car! That’s the plan!’

‘No time. Fucking come on!’

Sean Casey pushed open the driver’s door – it was buckled, so it wasn’t easy – and staggered out of the wreckage.

As he stood up, two things happened.

The first was that the front door of the neighbouring house opened, and a young woman appeared.

The second was that several of the soldiers from the VCP sprinted around the corner and started towards them.

‘In there!’ shouted Sean to his younger brother, pointing at the open doorway.

But Gerard stood motionless, pistol still in his hand, half-raised.

In one weird moment of clarity, he thought to himself: This is karma. I should not have murdered Billy Jones .

Sean stared back at the soldiers.

This was not happening. This was not how it was meant to fucking be.

He’d only ever killed unarmed men – up close, taking pleasure in it, laughing about it later. The kudos it brought him. The pints in the bar. Being someone . Bigger, harder men scared to meet his eye, for fear of what he and his pals might do to them.

This was very different.

He raised the AK.

Suddenly, it seemed to weigh a ton.

The muzzle danced.

He couldn’t hold it level.

In the small part of his brain that was still thinking rationally, he heard himself say, Why’s it so heavy?

Somewhere, he heard the snap of a round from Mick Parry’s SA80 pass close to his head, and then the whine of the ricochet.

He could see another soldier in combats…

And why the fuck do they wear camouflage in a city?

…standing, rifle raised.

Taking aim.

He’s fucking shooting at me!

He pulled the AK trigger.

Four shots, all way too high, and in that half-second the magazine ran dry.

He pulled it again.

Heard the dead man’s click .

Started to shout, ‘No, wait!’

John Carr stood ramrod straight, SA80 aimed, like he was on the range at Sennybridge.

In the split second before he gently squeezed the trigger, he recognised the man in his sights from one of the many briefings he’d attended.

Sick Sean .

An evil man.

Christmas and his birthday, rolled into one.

Casey’s brain was telling him to get down, but he was paralysed by fear, the same fear which now emptied his bladder.

Carr’s round took him just below the nose on his upper lip, snapping his head back like he’d been smashed in the face with a steam hammer. It left only a small, cauterised entry wound, but erupted out of the back of his skull, taking teeth and brains and blood with it.

Stone dead, he hit the ground, the AK flying from his grasp and clattering to the pavement feet away.

Almost simultaneously, a shot from Mick Parry hit Gerard Casey in the shoulder, spinning him round and back and down to the ground.

He lay there, winded, yelping, for a moment or two, staring at the body of his older brother.

Then, horrified, and powered by adrenalin and terror, he scrambled to his feet, leaving the Webley on the pavement.

Bent double, not stopping to look at Sean, he half-rolled, half-fell past the screaming woman and into her house.

He was standing, wild-eyed in the living room, bright red blood pulsing from his wound, his brain overloaded with information and questions, when two soldiers burst in.

Mick Parry and John Carr.

The three men stood looking at each other, panting – for a half-second, no more.

Then Carr stepped forward and stabbed Gerard Casey’s cheek with the barrel of his rifle, as if it was bayonet practice, breaking his cheekbone and putting him straight down onto the brown carpet.

The soldiers stood over the young shooter, rifles pointed at his chest.

Blood was still streaming from his wound; it would later transpire his carotid and subclavian arteries had been nicked by the SA80 round.

His eyes were vague and unfocused.

Parry bent down and slapped his face. ‘Wakey wakey,’ he said, with a grin. ‘It’s Para Reg time!’

Gerard Casey groaned.

‘We’ve just killed your mate,’ said Parry. ‘Shot the wanker in the face.’

‘My brother,’ moaned the stricken man. ‘No.’

He half-coughed, half-sobbed. A guttural sound.

‘Ambulance,’ he said, thickly. ‘Please. It hurts.’

He closed his eyes, and a vivid image swam through his mind of Sean’s head disintegrating.

He vomited and started choking on the bitter bile.

The housewife had come in, hand to her mouth in horror, and now she raised the receiver on the telephone.

‘You put that fucker down,’ said Parry, getting up and pushing her roughly into the darkened kitchen.

Carr got down, his left knee in Gerard Casey’s blood, and pulled a first field dressing from his webbing.

Ripped open the boiler suit and tore the sodden T-shirt underneath it apart.

The wound was pulsing red.

He lifted the injured man slightly and felt at the back.

No exit wound.

Young Casey’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head, and his breathing was becoming laboured and irregular.

Carr was applying the field dressing onto the wound on his collarbone when Parry reappeared.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he said. ‘We’re not saving this cunt’s life, John.’

‘We’re better than them,’ said Carr, through gritted teeth. ‘He needs an ambulance.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Parry. He squatted down next to Casey, pulled off the dressing and threw it across the room. ‘Three of my mates were killed at Mayobridge the other day by your mob, pal,’ he said to the groaning man. ‘Young lads, blown to pieces by cowards. If you think I’m calling yous a fucking ambo you must be confusing me with somebody who gives a shit.’

The blood was spurting more slowly, now, so Parry pressed his hand on Casey’s chest, making it flow quicker.

‘How does that feel?’ he said. ‘Does it sting a bit?’

‘He’s going tae bleed out, Mick,’ said Carr.

‘Yeah,’ said Parry. ‘That’s the general idea.’

Just then, they heard a stifled sob behind them, and turned to see the homeowner standing in the kitchen doorway, hands over her mouth.