Dermott Lynch was halfway through a pint of Guinness in a pub in the Temple Bar district of Dublin when he saw the news flash. The barman turned up the volume on the television set fixed to the wall by the entrance to the Gents toilet and stood watching it, his arms folded across his chest. The RTE1 announcer was reading from a sheet of paper. A man and a child killed. A woman in hospital. At first Lynch thought it was a road traffic accident, but then the picture cut away to footage of the burnt-out wreckage of the truck half-lying in a ditch.
Lynch put down his Guinness. A cold prickling feeling ran down to the base of his spine. What the hell had gone wrong? The newsreader said that the truck was believed to have contained arms and ammunition. The police were looking for the driver of the truck, but there were as yet no witnesses to the accident. Lynch frowned. If the truck had been destroyed in the accident, what had happened to Pat and the Quinn boys?
Lynch considered the consequences of the deaths. The IRA Army Council would mount an investigation and demand to know what had gone wrong. He’d have to explain why he’d left O’Riordan and the Quinn brothers, and while he didn’t think that he’d made a mistake by doing so, he doubted that McCormack would see it that way. The police would pull out all the stops to find out what had happened, and there’d be political ramifications, too. The Protestant paramilitaries wouldn’t hesitate to claim that the incident was a breach of the ceasefire. Lynch knew that he’d have to call McCormack, but he wanted to talk to the air traffic controller first. McCormack would demand an immediate meeting, Lynch was sure of that. And he’d insist that Lynch lie low, maybe even stay in Dublin until it had all blown over.
The newsreader was replaced by an American soap opera and the barman turned down the volume. Lynch stared at the screen with unseeing eyes. He wondered where Pat was, and if he was okay. He must have got away with the Quinn boys, but that didn’t explain the state of the truck. Maybe he’d set fire to the truck to destroy the evidence. That at least made sense. Lynch shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was no use crying over spilt milk. He sipped his Guinness and wiped the creamy froth from his beard with the back of his hand.
Lynch had a copy of the
McDonough came over to Lynch’s table and looked down at the newspaper. Lynch stood up and shook the man’s hand. McDonough’s skin was pale and pasty as if he didn’t get out in the sun much, and his fingernails were bitten to the quick. Lynch wondered if it was as a result of the man’s high-pressure job or if he was just the nervous type. He asked what McDonough wanted to drink. ‘Orange juice,’ he said, almost apologetically and sat down while Lynch went to buy it. When Lynch came back to the table, McDonough was flicking through the paper. He put it down and took his drink, toasting Lynch before drinking. ‘I’m working the early shift tomorrow,’ he said, by way of explanation.
‘Yeah, I bet you need a clear head in your job, right enough,’ agreed Lynch sympathetically.
‘Tell me about it,’ said McDonough. He put down his drink, steepled his fingers under his chin and looked at Lynch as if he was studying a radar screen. There were deep crow’s feet either side of his pale grey eyes, as if he spent a lot of time squinting. ‘Your man asked me about a helicopter flying in and out of Howth a few days back. A Sea King, he said.’
Lynch nodded. ‘Yeah. It came around Ireland’s Eye, picked up two men, and flew off to the east. Did you see it on your screens?’
‘Not personally, no. I was working ground control. But I’ve checked our records and we were in contact with it. Hardly surprising, Dublin radar goes down to about thirty feet above sea level all around there. He couldn’t have got within twenty miles of Howth without being spotted.’
‘Where did it come from?’
McDonough began to bite at the flesh at the corner of a fingernail, gnawing away like a gerbil. His teeth were yellow and ratlike, and he glanced furtively around as if he feared being chastised for the habit. ‘No way of telling,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t filed a flight plan. They came in on a heading of 280 degrees but that doesn’t mean anything.’ McDonough stopped biting his nails. ‘Your man said the Sea King was red, white and blue. Red tail, white body, blue on the bottom?’
‘That’s right,’ said Lynch.
McDonough’s eyes sparkled. He folded his hands together and put them under the table as if hiding them. ‘I reckon it could have been one of the Westlands operated by the Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive.’
‘Not the army?’
McDonough shook his head. ‘Nah, they use them for radar trials and experimental work. It’s a mystery what it was doing in Howth, it shouldn’t even be in Irish airspace.’
‘Okay, so let’s assume it was an MoD chopper,’ said Lynch. ‘Where could it have gone?’
‘They certainly didn’t land at Dublin, and whichever way they went they must have given the airport a wide berth. I checked with Belfast and they’ve no record of a Sea King landing there at the time you’re talking about. They’re were plenty of army Lynxes and Pumas around and a couple of Chinooks, but no Sea Kings.’
‘But they could have landed anywhere else, away from the airports?’
‘Oh sure. A field, even on a ship at sea. From the sound of it, I’d say they went to the mainland.’
‘Yeah? Why?’ Lynch sat forward, suddenly interested.
‘Why else would they use a Sea King? It’s got a huge range, more than 750 miles with a standard fuel load. And if it was a Procurement Executive chopper, it could have easily been fitted with extra tanks. It could have gone all the way to London. A Lynx’s range would be less than 400 miles, and they’re a hell of a lot more common in Ireland than Sea Kings. Even the Westland Wessex that 72 Squadron uses in the north can only fly about 350 miles on standard tanks, maybe 500 with auxiliary fuel. No, if they went to the trouble of using a Sea King, there must have been a reason, and the range is the only thing I can think of. If they were staying in Ireland or landing at sea, they’d have used a Lynx or a Wessex for sure.’
Lynch nodded excitedly. ‘Okay, so if we assume it crossed the Irish Sea, how do I find out where it landed?’
‘You’d need to speak to someone like me over in the UK. Wales first. That’s where the pilot would have checked in. But I don’t know anyone over there, not anyone Irish, anyway. But I could have a go myself.’
‘How long will it take?’ Lynch asked.
‘Depends,’ said McDonough. He ran his finger around the rim of his glass, then licked it. ‘There are plenty of reasons why Dublin ATC might request information on a flight to the mainland. If I meet any sort of resistance I’ll back off immediately, but I don’t think there’ll be a problem. I didn’t want to try without checking with you first.’
‘Good man,’ said Lynch. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you got on.’ He drained his glass and stood up. He shook McDonough’s hand firmly. ‘Keep the paper, it’s a bit right-wing for my taste.’ Lynch left the pub and walked through Temple Bar looking for a call box. A teenager in blue denim dungarees was playing a saxophone, bent almost double at the waist as he put his heart and soul into it, the mournful notes echoing off the narrow alley where he was standing with his case open at his feet. Lynch dropped a couple of coins into the case as he went by but the guy had his eyes closed and showed no reaction. It seemed that every second building in Temple Bar was being renovated by entrepreneurs attracted by the city council’s tax breaks. Until recently the area, to the south of the River Liffey, had been the rundown haunt of drug addicts, muggers and prostitutes, but it was gradually being turned into an entertainment centre along the lines of London’s Covent Garden with restaurants, bars and speciality shops. He found a call box and McCormack answered on the third ring. ‘Thomas? It’s me.’ Lynch was as reluctant to use names on an open line south of the border as he was in Belfast.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’
Lynch frowned. It wasn’t like McCormack to use profanity, even under stress. ‘I’m here. In Dublin.’
‘You’ve heard what happened?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We need to meet. Now.’
‘Yeah. I know.’
‘Where are you?’
