Forty-eight
Frank O'Toole watched from his position in the gap behind the steps leading down to the ferry's lower parking level as the man he was tracking weaved his way through the stationary vehicles until he came to the lorry. The man's name was Trevor Gould. He was in his early fifties, with a ruddy complexion suggesting high blood pressure and an immense pot belly which made him look like he'd swallowed a beach ball. He stopped by the lorry and clicked off its central locking, unaware that its plates had been changed.
Another guy in a suit, looking exhausted, made his way to his own vehicle, and from the top of the steps O'Toole could hear more voices. It was time to move.
As Gould opened the driver's door and heaved himself up on to the step, precariously balancing the half-eaten baguette he was carrying, O'Toole slipped from his hiding place and strode over to him, keeping his head down and watching the man in the suit out of the corner of his eye as he got into his own car.
Gould was so busy squeezing himself into the driver's seat that he didn't spot a thing until O'Toole was leaning into the cab and jabbing the hunting knife into his side.
'Move over,' he hissed, 'and don't look at me or make a sound. Otherwise you're dead.'
'I don't want any trouble,' said Gould, who was sensible enough to do what he was told. It was a real effort for him to clamber over the handbrake and the gearstick, and O'Toole noticed with wry amusement that he continued to clutch the greasy baguette as if it was the crown jewels.
'Where's the tracking device in this thing?' O'Toole demanded.
'Under my seat,' replied Gould, making an exaggerated effort not to look at him.
'Disconnect it.'
As Gould leaned down, O'Toole slipped a hypodermic syringe from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He removed the stopper and, as Gould sat back up again, jabbed the needle into his arm.
Unlike the man he was currently working for, Frank O'Toole didn't enjoy killing people. He'd only done it once before and that was fifteen years ago now. A tout who'd been selling information to the Brits. O'Toole and another man had kidnapped him from the street outside his home and taken him to an abandoned warehouse just outside Newry where he'd been tried by an IRA military court and found guilty of the crimes of which he was accused. There was only ever one sentence for touting: death. O'Toole had been given the task of carrying it out, something he'd done without hesitation, putting a bullet in the back of the man's head as he knelt down, blindfolded and begging for his life. O'Toole had had no sympathy for him – touts deserved what was coming to them – but he hadn't gained any satisfaction from doing it either. It was a job, nothing more. Just as it was a job now. And this time he was being paid a hundred grand for his troubles – more than he'd earned in the last ten years – which meant there was no place for weakness. Or too many questions.
Trevor Gould grimaced as the poison flooded into his system, and his eyes bulged. O'Toole slapped a hand over his mouth and pushed him back in the seat as he juddered and writhed. He could have killed him with the knife but that would have been way too messy. O'Toole wasn't squeamish, but he was going to have to drive this thing for the next hour and he didn't want it looking or smelling like a slaughterhouse.
Gould took several minutes to die, but his demise was silent and attracted no attention from the people who were now milling about their cars as the ferry made its way slowly into Harwich docks. When he was finally still, his face puce, O'Toole reached into his pocket, pulled out the APR licence badge that had been made for him, and attached it to his own jacket. He then squeezed Gould's body into the sleeping area behind the front seats and chucked a grimy-looking duvet over it. Ignoring the smell that was already beginning to permeate the cab, he polished off Gould's baguette, then started the lorry's engine as the ferry drew into the docks.
Barely five minutes later the ferry's iron doors opened, and O'Toole joined the long line of traffic snaking its way towards passport control. He sighed with relief as he was waved through with the merest hint of a glance by a kid barely out of his teens. He didn't even have to open his window. Just waved his false British passport in the kid's general direction. It amazed him that there was so little security, although he guessed that these days men like him, white and middle-aged, were no longer considered suspicious.
He chuckled to himself. Once upon a time he was one of Scotland Yard's most wanted men, with his own file at MI5. Now he was considered part of a long ago, irrelevant past.
Such complacency was going to prove a huge mistake.
Forty-nine
'Nigel's gay,' said Yvonne with an exaggerated sigh, looking up at me, her expression a strange mix of disappointment and naked lust. 'I caught him with the local blacksmith.' Her hand slowly stroked my arm, and I found myself getting aroused. 'I think we should get back together, Rob. It's been too long, and I haven't been happy without you, I really haven't. You were always the man for me.'
I almost cried out with joy. This was what I'd wanted for a long time. The three of us back together again. It was as if a complex plan had finally come together.
Then I woke up.
Dazed, and with my arm throbbing painfully, I sat up in bed and picked up my watch from the bedside table. It was half past ten. I'd been asleep for the best part of ten hours. Sunlight flooded in through the window, and through the glass in the door I could see the silhouette of a man with a machine gun standing guard. After the most hectic and terrifying few days of my life, I was finally safe.
But, strangely, this knowledge didn't make me feel as good as it should have. Instead, I was enveloped by a feeling of real melancholy. This was partly to do with the dream I'd just had. It might have been pretty bizarre but it had also offered me a little hope, which had now been snatched back by reality. But it wasn't just that. With the drama of the last few days over, I was suddenly completely alone, no longer part of the events whirling round me.
I thought of Jenny and Tina Boyd and wondered if they were still alive. Somehow I couldn't imagine that bastard with the saucer eyes letting them go. He didn't seem the kind of man capable of showing any mercy. I wished I'd been more help to the cops who'd come to see me the previous night. They'd seemed like pretty intelligent on-the-ball guys, but it all depended on the quality of the leads they had to work on, and since most of them had come from me I wasn't at all sure they were that good.
The business card of the one in charge, Mike Bolt, was on the bedside table, and I picked it up now, wanting to call him for an update but knowing he wouldn't appreciate it, especially as I had nothing new to tell him.
There was a jug of water by the bed and I filled my glass and drank deeply, racking my brains for something I might have missed out in my account of those frenetic forty-eight hours.
It was only when I'd refilled my glass and picked up my mobile phone – the one that had advertised my whereabouts to the men who wanted to kill me – that it struck me. When I went to Jenny's father's place I'd photographed the unidentified car on his driveway on my mobile before he disturbed me. For some reason – it must have been the fact that it was sandwiched between far bigger, more terrifying events – I hadn't mentioned it to Bolt and his colleague, yet the car had almost certainly belonged to the shaven-headed kidnapper who'd chased me across Jenny's dad's lawn. And he might still be using it.
I didn't know whether or not the police had already visited her dad's place, or whether they'd located the car, but it had to be worth telling them about.
Hoping that he had some good news for me, I dialled Mike Bolt's number.
Fifty
Eamon Donald stubbed his cigarette underfoot and watched as the lorry drove through the open double doors and into the cavernous barn, stopping at the end. The driver exited the cab and Donald immediately recognized him as Frank O'Toole, a volunteer from the old days. They'd spent a few months together in the Maze in the early nineties, before the first ceasefire, and Donald remembered that he'd been well thought of by his commanding officer. 'Reliable' was the word he'd used. Exactly what was needed for a job like this.
He was less sure of the other guy Hook had hired, a big shaven-headed thug from south London called Stone, who was currently at the far end of the barn sawing up long tubes of drainpiping into pieces six feet long. Stone didn't speak much, nor did he ask any questions, such as 'What am I doing sawing up tubes of drain-piping?' He did exactly what he was told without fuss or comment. In Eamon Donald's view, men who didn't ask questions shouldn't be trusted. Either they were immensely stupid or, worse, they were pretending to be. Hook had said that he'd worked with Stone in his days as a freelance London hitman, and it had been a success. Donald trusted his current employer's judgement, but he still had his doubts about the Londoner.
'Hello Eamon,' said O'Toole, coming over. 'I had an idea I might run into you at some point on this op. How are you doing?'
'I'm fine,' answered Donald, smiling thinly as they shook hands. He hoped that other people wouldn't jump to the same conclusion. As one of the IRA's most seasoned bombmakers, with more than twenty-five years' worth of experience with explosives under his belt, some of which was still very much up to date, Donald had to be very careful that he covered his tracks on this op. 'So, you know what the load is you're carrying, then?' he asked.
O'Toole nodded. 'Aye, I do. I don't think he does, though.' He pointed at Stone, who had his back to them, sawing away.
'No, and we're not going to say anything to him either. The fewer people who know about this, the better. And he might not be too happy if he thinks we're going to bomb his home town.'
'Are we?' asked O'Toole, looking interested. 'Do you know what the target is?'
'No, I don't.' This was a lie. Donald knew exactly what, and who, the target was going to be. 'All I know is it's got to be ready by ten o'clock tonight, so we're going to need to get going. I don't want Hook on my back telling me to hurry things along. You can't hurry something like this.'
'Where is Hook?' asked O'Toole, looking round.
'He's about here somewhere. Probably with the hostages.'
'They're still alive, are they? I thought he'd have wanted rid of them by now.'
Donald shrugged. Hook had always had an eye for the ladies. In the old days he'd had a lot of success, but that had all changed when his face had been ripped apart by the bomb. Now he just looked like a freak. But Donald had no doubt that he would have taken advantage of the current situation, and that both the women upstairs would have been on the receiving end of his unwanted advances by now. As a father of two adult daughters himself, Donald didn't approve. He was notoriously prudish in matters of the flesh, but as long as it didn't interfere with the op, and they were both disposed of before the end of it, he was prepared to turn a blind eye.
Deciding it was time to bring the small talk to an end, he walked over to the back of the lorry. 'Keys,' he said to O'Toole, putting out a hand.
O'Toole handed them to him, and Donald unlocked the rear doors and pulled them open.
In front of him, stacked two high, were open-ended wooden pallets containing neat, straight rows of plain aluminium cylinders – 236 in all. But Eamon Donald didn't see plain aluminium cylinders. He saw great gouting plumes of fire and jagged clouds of shrapnel. Destruction. And, of course, revenge. The IRA's struggle might have officially ended more than a decade earlier but Donald retained a deep hatred for the British. They'd imprisoned him in the Maze for a total of fourteen years, as well as shooting dead his brother, Padraig. He'd made them suffer too, of course, with a string of
