Peter Corrigan - Bandit Country

They were moving again, thank Christ. Boyd could see them clearly now, buttoned up in parkas, their trousers soaked by the wet grass. McElwaine and the youngster, Conlan.

The two IRA men stopped at the tree which marked the cache, looked around again, and then bent to the ground and began rummaging in the grass. One of them produced a handgun with a wet glint of metal. They were pulling up turves, their fingers slipping on the wet earth.

Should he initiate the ambush now? No. Boyd wanted a ‘clean’ kill – he wanted both terrorists to have weapons in their hands when he opened up. That way there would be no awkward questions asked afterwards. The ‘yellow card’, the little document all soldiers in the Province carried, specified that it was only permitted to open fire without warning if the terrorist was in a position to endanger life, either the firer’s or someone else’s.

They were hauling things out of the hole now: bin-liner-wrapped shapes.

‘I’ll take McElwaine,’ Boyd whispered to Haymaker. He felt a slight tap from the trooper’s boot in agreement.

There. It looked like a Heckler & Koch G3: a good weapon. McElwaine was cradling the rifle like a new toy, discarding the bin-liner it had been wrapped in.

Boyd tightened his fist, and the M16 exploded into life. A hot cartridge-case struck his left cheek as Haymaker opened up also, but he hardly felt it. They were both firing bursts of automatic, the heavy, sickly smell of cordite hanging in the air about their heads.

McElwaine was thrown backwards, the G3 flying from his hands. Boyd saw the parka being shredded, dark pieces of flesh and bone spraying out from the massive exit wounds. Then McElwaine was on the ground, moving feebly. Boyd heard the ‘dead man’s click’ from his weapon and changed magazines swiftly, then opened up again. McElwaine’s body jumped and jerked as the 5.56mm rounds tore in and out of it.

He was aware that Conlan was down too. Haymaker changed mags also, then continued to fire. When they had emptied two mags each Boyd called a halt. They replenished their weapons and then lay breathing fast, their ears ringing and the adrenalin pumping through their veins like high-octane fuel. Haymaker was struggling not to laugh.

Boyd pressed the ‘squash’ button on the Landmaster radio to tell Taff and Raymond the mission had been a success. Then he and Haymaker lay motionless, rifles still in the shoulder, looking out on the meadow with its two shattered corpses.

Ten minutes they lay there, not moving – just watching. Then Boyd nudged Haymaker and the big man took off towards the bodies. Boyd pressed the squash button again, twice. Taff and Raymond would close in now.

Haymaker examined both bodies, then waved. Boyd grinned, then thumbed the switch on the radio once more.

‘Zero, this is Mike One Alpha, message, over.’

‘Mike One Alpha, send over.’

‘Mike One Alpha, Ampleforth, over.’

‘Zero, roger out.’

Boyd had given the code for a successful operation. In a few minutes a helicopter would arrive to spirit the SAS team away. The Green Army and the police would arrive to wrap up the more mundane details. Boyd ran over to Haymaker. The big trooper was kneeling by the bodies. It was hard to see the expression on his camouflaged face in the gathering twilight.

‘Fucking weapons weren’t loaded, boss. The magazines are still in the hole.’

Boyd shrugged, slipping on a pair of black Northern Ireland-issue gloves.

‘That’s not a problem.’

He reached into the hole and fetched the loaded magazines that the IRA men had not had time to fix to their weapons. Then he carefully loaded the G3 and an Armalite that was still in the cache, and placed them beside the two bodies.

‘That’s more fucking like it. No one will whinge about civil liberties now.’

The two men laughed. The adrenalin was still making them feel a little drunk. They turned at a noise and found Taff and Raymond approaching, grins all over their filthy faces.

‘Scratch two more of the bad guys, eh boss?’ Taff said.

‘Damn straight.’ Boyd lifted his head. He could hear the thump of the chopper off in the rain-filled sky. They had timed it nicely – there was just enough light for a pick-up.

‘Right, let’s clean up this place. I don’t want any kit left lying around for the RUC to sniff over.’ He paused. ‘Well done, lads. This was a good one.’

‘Bit of a payback for those poor bastards in Armagh,’ Haymaker said. He nudged one of the broken bodies with his foot.

‘You’re playing with the big boys now, Paddy.’

Armagh

It was good to be out of the city, Early thought. Belfast was a depressing hole at times, as claustrophobic and as deadly as some Stone Age village in a jungle. There were all the little invisible boundaries. One street was safe, the one next to it was not. This was Loyalist, that was Republican. This was a safe pub, that was a death-trap. So much depended on names and nuances, even the way the people spoke, the things they said, the football teams they supported, the sports they played.

Not that Armagh was any different. He must remember that. But it was good to see green fields, cows grazing, tractors meandering along the quiet roads. Hard to believe these places were battlefields in a vicious little war.

He took the bus from Armagh city, through Keady and Newtownhamilton, down to Crossmaglen – ‘Cross’ to soldiers and locals alike. Early preferred travelling by bus. It was less risky than using a car, and fitted in with his identity as an unemployed bricklayer.

The bus was stopped at vehicle checkpoints three times in its journey south, and soldiers who seemed both tense and bored got on to walk up and down the aisle, looking at faces and luggage, and occasionally asking for ID. At two of the VCPs Early was asked his name, destination and the purpose of his journey. It amused and relieved him that the soldiers seemed to find him a suspicious-looking character. The other passengers stared stonily ahead when the bus was checked, but when the soldiers had left one or two of them smiled at him, commiserating. Early shrugged back at them, smiling in return. His false ID, his accent and his motives for travelling to Crossmaglen were impeccable. He was Dominic McAteer, a bricklayer looking for work with Lavery’s Construction in the town.

Lavery’s offices were in a small estate called Rathkeelan, to the north-west of Crossmaglen. Early got off the bus and stood looking around, hands in pockets, his duffle bag on his back. He bore no ID, but strapped to the inside of his right ankle was a compact Walther 9mm semiautomatic; not as effective as the Browning High Powers the SAS usually carried, but far more easily concealed. It could fit in his underpants if it had to.

Early passed beautifully painted murals on the whitewashed walls of the houses, the silhouettes of Balaclava-clad men bearing Armalites, and on one wall the recently repainted tally ‘Provos 9 Brits 0’ and below it the slogan ‘One Shot, One Kill’.

His jaw tightened with anger for a second. His brother was one of those included in that score.

Then he recollected himself, and headed for the door of the nearest bar, whistling ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’.

It was dark inside, as all Irish pubs were. He dumped his duffle bag with a sigh and rubbed the back of his thick neck. A cluster of men sitting and standing with pints in their hands paused in their conversation to look at him. He smiled and nodded. The barman approached, a large, florid man wiping a glass.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Ach, give us a Guinness and a wee Bush.’

The barman nodded. The conversations resumed. Good Evening Ulster had just started on the dusty TV that perched on a shelf near the ceiling. Early pretended to watch it, while discreetly clocking the faces of the other customers. No players present. He was glad.