being dug that would hold a flame-thrower if they could get it up from the south.. . She dominated Song Bird. She could make him laugh and she could make him cower. Song Bird was Cathy's marionette…
She had him in the palm of her hand. At the end, the bastard thanked her.
He was gone, his car coughing away into the darkness.
Two miles down the road, when she told him to, Bren used the radio to pull off the back-up cars.
Bren said, 'You were pretty hard on him.'
She turned her head away, as if she didn't want to hear him. 'Just trying to keep him alive.'
8
He watched the major ease back into his chair. The map of the operation plan that he had drawn was left on the easel. The Assistant Under-Secretary knew all their names, bar the one. Hobbes, scratching the side of his face. The Assistant Chief Constable, making his notes.
The colonel of Army Intelligence, paring his nails. Howard Rennie, gazing out of the window. The young woman was the only outsider, and she stared throughout at the ceiling.
The Assistant Under-Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office tilted his head to see the map better through his bifocal spectacles.
The Special Air Service always drew good plans. There was the Killyman Road where it ran out of Dungannon towards Maghery.
Below the road was drawn the web of streets of the housing estate.
Above the road was the shaded line marking the perimeter fence, and the square block in red was the old house round which the barracks had been built. It was a good map and it had been a concise briefing.
The question before the Task Co-ordinating Group was whether to sanction the plan. The final approval rested with the Assistant under-Secretary.
The young woman had made no contribution to the meeting, and twice had to conceal her yawns. Rennie had started to excavate the bowl of his pipe and used his coffee saucer for the debris. The major sat patiently, his arms folded. The Assistant Chief Constable and the colonel, wily and experienced men, were content to wait on the Assistant Under-Secretary.
Hr shuffled his papers. All their eyes were on him now.
'Isn't there another way…?' His voice was high-pitched, sibilant, They gave him no help. It was only the fourth time that he had sat in on Task Co-ordinating Group. They seemed to mock him, the Assistant Chief Constable and the colonel, as if he were merely squeamish. The major met his questioning glance and didn't respond, as if his job was completed. Every time there was an ambush shooting his Secretary of State was forced onto the defensive. Rennie, billowing smoke from his new-filled pipe, screened himself. A community worker had told him recently that Special Air Service ambushes were the best recruiting sergeant the Provisionals had. The man from Five, Hobbes, looked back at him, through him, as if no possible alternative existed to the action that was proposed.
There was this young woman sitting behind the man from Five.
'… There is always an alternative way, surely?' The Assistant Under-Secretary fixed on her. She was yawning again. He thought she yawned because she was tired, not because she was bored. She was appallingly dressed. A skirt that was too short, a hideous mauve blouse, a cardigan that was too large, and a handbag in which he could comfortably have hidden his briefcase. He had not been introduced at the start of the meeting. Clearly not a secretary because she had no paper, no pencil, just a rather lovely smile that went with the yawn.
Like his own niece, who'd back-packed round Australia, who couldn't abide…
She looked at her watch, said decisively, 'No, there isn't.'
'I beg your pardon…'
She said brusquely, 'There is no other way.'
What he had wanted was for the debate to start. Debate he could influence. He turned away from her. 'I think we might explore alternatives. We are looking, after all, at a situation in which lives are.. .'
‘’Listen…’’.
He turned sharply to face her.
‘’Please don't interrupt me…'
I said for you to listen.'
He saw that her eyes were a very pale shade of blue. He thought her hair to be truly golden. She had a clear voice, not loud and not hectoring. He felt afraid of her.
She said, 'I'm what's called a handler, I handle an informer. Are you with me? My informer is always at risk, and my greatest priority is to protect that man. There is going to be a heavy-calibre machine-gun attack tomorrow on the Dungannon barracks. My informer is going to be a part of that attack. His boss – that's the Officer Commanding East Tyrone Brigade – knows the exact time, and the place. My informer also knows the time and the place. There is a strong suspicion in the East Tyrone Brigade of an informer in their ranks.. . therefore the O.C. will not brief the remaining members of the active service unit until the last moment. To protect himself my informer must go through with the attack.
'So explore your alternatives to our proposal… We can do nothing.
We can allow P.I.R.A. to take over the home of a 71- year-old woman and blast the daylights out of the camp, and have them laugh themselves sick at our lack of preparedness. Or we can set up roadblocks round the town. That will cause them to abort, hold another inquest, check who knew, identify and eliminate my informer. Or we can watch them into the house, surround it. lay siege to it, starve them out and arrest them all, in which ease my informer goes to prison where he is of little use to me . Or, we can let matters run their course, as outlined to you. I cannot agree to anything that jeopardises my informer.'
The Assistant Under-Secretary looked round the table for support and found none. He saw the fresh skin of the young woman's face, and the eyes that showed no doubt. He assumed she used so large a handbag the better to conceal a firearm. He believed he saw a young woman of quite terrifying certainty, and that he was watched by every one of the men round the table for his weakness and for his strength.
He said, 'You want my blessing for the killing of three, or four, young men…'
No emotion, no drama. 'I want a guarantee that my informer will not be put at risk, which is to say identified as such, tortured for all he knows, and shot. Any alternative you choose will do just that. Cost him his life and the security services a priceless asset.'
His voice was a whisper He saw Rennie, the big policeman whom he thought to be an honest man, lean forward and cup his ear. He felt quite sick. 'I never thought to have such hateful power. So be it.'
Rennie carried the tray with the coffees that he had poured.
He passed the cup and saucer, and the sugar.
Hobbes said, 'I thought that went rather well… Thank you, Howard
… Very well, in fact. Such a change when we're not at each other's throats.'
Rennie said, smiling wickedly, 'Don't delude yourself. You got a soft ride because the common enemy was in attendance. If the big man from Stormont hadn't been there I'd have had you on the floor squealing for mercy. There's no love on our side for your cowboy operations, Mr Hobbes. Best you remember it. It's just that an idiot like the Stormont fellow closes ranks… and Cathy. did well.. .'
'I told her she shouldn't come dressed as a navvy. Impertinent young woman.'
'She's your jewel, perhaps the best reason we have for tolerating you
'What do you think is the prospect,' Hobbes asked with studied politeness, 'of your being able to raise, for example, a biscuit? '
The Assistant Under Secretary reported back to his Secretary of State. The Secretary of State expected to be told when a major stake-out was in place.
She was quite extraordinary, really. Only a slip of a thing.
Verbatim, she picked me up, shook me, then put me gently back in my chair. I'll try to think of it as part of my learning process. When i was at Trade and Industry, if any young woman, any woman at all had spoken to me like that then she'd have been looking for a new career later that very same day. She talked me through a world of
