Gordon Stevens - Provo

Haslam reached the top of the street and turned left.

‘Charlie One Five. Green Four.’ The first tail dropped back.

‘Charlie One Six. Green Five.’ The second picked Haslam up from the other side of the road. Surveillance teams in front and behind. Vehicles on stand-by.

‘One Six. Green Three.’ The bus stop was seventy yards ahead and the tail thirty yards behind. Haslam glanced back and saw the bus; as it passed him he slowed and allowed it to stop at the stop, then sprinted for it as it pulled away.

‘Charlie One Two. Blue Two.’ The woman who had been waiting at the stop took the third seat in, downstairs, and watched as he went up the stairs to the top deck. ‘Blue Three.’ . . . Silver Street. ‘Blue Four.’ . . . Rodney Street. ‘Blue Five.’ She called the stops as the bus passed them. One car staying behind, the others moving ahead, dropping tails where the target might leave the bus.

This was their patch, Nolan thought; they’d practised on it and knew the streets backwards. Christ help them if the target decided to go AWOL, took the train to Bournemouth and got off at Southampton, left them spread like confetti over the south of England. She slid from the car and looked in the window of the tobacconist next to the bus stop.

‘Charlie One Three. Green Ten to Green Eleven.’ . . . The suspect on foot in Vesta Road going towards Queens Road.

‘Charlie Two One.’ The next tail in position. ‘Affirmative.’ The tail slid in behind Haslam.

Bramshaw Road then Pembury Street, the railway line across the top and the footbridge to Marshall Place – the area map was imprinted on her mind. Cul de sacs at Bolsover Street and Duncan Road.

Haslam turned into the newsagents and waited for the tail to follow him in. ‘Box of matches.’ He paid, then browsed along the magazine shelves as the tail asked for a packet of cigarettes. It was time to start playing games, time to give them a run for their money. He left the shop and turned first right. The street was seventy yards long, turnings to the right and left at the top.

‘Charlie Two Three. Green Eight.’

The tail was thirty yards behind and afraid to go too close. Haslam slowed and made the tail drop even further back, so that when he reached the corner the man was almost forty yards behind him. He turned the corner and ran. Thirty yards, left; another forty, right. Left again and over the railway footbridge. The tail rounded the corner. ‘Green Eight.’ He looked right, left. Didn’t know what to do or say.

Nolan heard, knew what the bastard had done. The pavement was lined with stalls. She pushed through them and slid into the back-up car. ‘Marshall Place, quick, he’s gone over the footbridge.’

The car accelerated, went through the lights on amber, and skidded across the level crossing at Fore Street as the barrier came down.

‘One Three. Blue Two towards Black Four.’ Haslam was fifty yards in front, walking away from them. The car pulled into a side street; she left it and followed him. ‘One Three. Black Ten.’ She turned right after him and realized. Bolsover Street, a cul-de-sac. He’s going to sideline me, the thought screamed through her head, the bastard’s going to eyeball me. Standard anti-surveillance if a target thought he was being shadowed – one of several. Turn, walk back past the shadow, stare him in the face. Let him know that you know. Put him out of the game.

Haslam turned and she saw his face for the first time. Understood.

Long time since Germany – he didn’t need to say it. Long time since the adventure training course and the talk about Special Duties.

You – she was still walking towards him. You were the second man in the house on Beechwood Street. You were the one who pulled the strings and got me off the desk assignment and into the Firm. You were the bastard who arranged the little session at Hereford. You waited till it was me behind you before you turned in here.

Haslam was twenty yards from her, on the outside of the pavement, eyes straight ahead. They were ten yards apart, five. Both staring straight ahead. Good girl, the instructor whispered to himself, don’t let him phase you. Just keep walking. Haslam was three yards from her, face set, Nolan still staring straight ahead.

As she passed him she winked.

The Army Council met at ten. Outside there was sleet in the wind; inside the air was mixed with cigarette smoke and the aroma of fresh coffee. Doherty was looking older, Conlan thought, the first cobweb of dark and wrinkled skin beneath his eyes and the eyes themselves darting as he had never seen them before. The evening before the doctor had confirmed what the Chief of Staff already assumed.

For the major part of the morning they discussed general issues – the escalating rounds of shootings and bombings, the income from the various fund-raising activities operated by the Movement and the laundering of that money through front companies on the British mainland. It was only as they approached midday that Doherty moved them to the item they had all anticipated.

‘Sleeper and PinMan.’

Doherty had organized it well, Conlan thought, had guided the previous discussions so that the Council was already predisposed to agree to the PinMan project. Had added his weight only when necessary, and then merely to divert the tide of opinion in the direction he wished. Doherty was dying: he had suspected before but now he knew for certain, now he understood. Doherty wanted PinMan and what PinMan would give them as much as he himself did.

Doherty indicated that Conlan should brief the meeting. So what would Quin do, he wondered, how would Quin seek to counter Conlan?

‘Sleeper has been activated, and is engaged upon preliminary research. I anticipate the project will take another three to six months.’ He spoke for another two minutes only, deliberately vague about timings and other details, withholding as much as he could and knowing the direction the discussion would take when he had finished.

‘Do we know which member of the royal family will be the target?’ Quin stared at him through the cigarette smoke.

‘Not yet.’ Conlan wondered why he considered it necessary to lie.

‘Assassination or kidnapping?’ It was Quin again.

For the next two hours they discussed the range of alternatives and the various options within each, including the short-, medium- and long-term implications of whatever decision they reached. If assassination, what would be the effect on world opinion, including the Movement’s supporters in the United States? How would the Catholic population in Northern Ireland react? What would be the response in the Republic? If kidnapping, what demands? Would the British try to hush it up? Would the Council let them? The discussion circled back on itself. What was the long-term aim, how would the various reactions further that aim?

Doherty had discussed it with Conlan the night before, Quin suddenly realized. Doherty knew who the target was and how it was to be done. Doherty dying – he looked into the man’s eyes and knew for certain. Doherty on his way out and Conlan about to give him his footnote in history.

‘I suggest we vote.’

Quin knows, Conlan suddenly realized: that he and Doherty had done the deal, that he enjoyed Doherty’s full support.

The vote was unanimous. Outside it was already dark.

The following morning Conlan activated those he had already placed on stand-by.

McGuire, from Belfast. In his mid-thirties, lean and thin-faced, short dark curly hair. Married with two children. A good operator, one of the best.

McGinty, whose priest’s collar and gentle manner gave him the perfect cover. Who loved fishing and who so matched Conlan in age and build that from a distance he could pass for him. Especially when he was wrapped in oilskins, woollen cap or dark glasses against the glare of the sun or the bite of the wind on the shores of Lough Corrib.