informers.
It has been in my mind all the way back here that some poor devil out there, in that cruel wilderness, is the pawn of that young woman.
His life must be one long terror… She certainly terrified me and I'm on the same side, at least I think I was. I'm not proud of myself, but I acquiesced…'
It was the third time that Jon Jo Donnelly had read the letter.
There was no signature, only the typewritten legend, the name of a man who had gone to the gallows in a British gaol more than fifty years before. The first time he had merely read it, hardly taking it in. The second time he had boiled with anger, checked himself with difficulty from tearing and burning the pages. The third time he felt only overwhelming loneliness. The people below, the young couple from Cork, were watching their television. It was out of the question that he should go downstairs and talk with them, look for their companionship.
He was alone. It was the new way, men operating alone, the control of risk.
They had no feckin' right, not from Dublin, to write that first page, that first part.
'… We have to demand that greater care is taken on all operations carried out in our name. Very large resources are allocated for the operations inside the British mainland, necessitating cutbacks in funds for the many commitments that burden us. The families of men imprisoned in the twenty-six counties and the six counties suffer considerable privations, and it is essential that those families believe that money allocated to the Organisation's overseas active service units is not wasted money.
'We regard the South London attack as a disaster. The deaths ot two small girls have caused us to face widespread criticism at home, and given our enemy a capital propaganda coup. Such errors cannot he condoned. We understand the difficulties of operating on the mainland but require much greater care in pressing home the attack on the nominated target.
'Sadly we have been given further occasion for complaint. The shooting of Beck was unsatisfactory. Each time that we fail to execute a member ol the Crown forces we provide the enemy with the opportunity to ridicule us. We expect greater resolution in the carrying out of attacks, The Crown forces oppressing our people in the six counties are ruthless in the murder of volunteers. We should be no less determined when we strike back at them…'
The men in Dublin had no greater worry, Jon Jo thought, than whether or not they had lost a police tail. They risked nothing. They never carried firearms. They never had to scrub, fast, the explosives traces from their bodies. They had their women waiting for them. They had the bar on the corner. No man in Dublin was as alone as he was.
'… As to targets: every target must have a national profile. The execution of an army recruiting officer is forgotten by the British public within hours. The British are a complacent and apolitical race, if they are not shocked they are not interested.
'Brighton they will not forget. Downing Street will be remembered for years to come. Future targets will be selected on the basis of their capacity to damage the enemy's security system., Railway stations, airports, and defence installations are to be given priority
… We are investigating the further supply of mortars and of R.P.G. 7s. Progress has been made in the use of lasers to detonate pre-placed explosives…
The graves of many martyrs cry etcetera, etcetera.’’
It was just cow shit. Some of the targets on the list were down- right suicidal. Did they want him dead? Is that what they wanted? Him in a box and the big crowd walking behind to the church on Altmore? More feckin' use to them dead, was he?
Did they want to write a song about him, was that it?
'The radio said
There was another shot dead
And he died with a gun in his hand,
But it didn't say why
Billy Reld had to die…
He died to free Ireland.'
Billv Reid, volunteer was shot dead 15th May 1971, and there was a Billy Reid Commemoration each year, and a Billy Reid Memorial Band. There would be a Jon Jo Donnelly flute and pipe band, for Jon Jo Donnelly dead.
Just not possible, most of what the list called for. Secret Intelliigence Service, Century House. Security Service, Curzon Street. Ministry of Defence, main building. Just not possible for Jon Jo. Director General, G.C.H.Q., Cheltenham. Chief of the General Staff. Oh, yes, certainly.
Should be able to manage that. Shouldn't be more than a twenty-four-hour guard twelve deep for one of those. Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Head of the Civil Service. Possible for an arsehole sitting in Dublin and writing cow shit…
Alone in his room in the house in northeast London, the unlovely, uncomforting room. Attracta was in his mind, and his boy.
He stood up, turned out the light and opened the curtain. He saw her, and he thought she was white-faced and too proud to weep as the home they had made together was wrecked. He saw that she held little Kevin against her body. It was what he had brought upon her. The smashing of her home.
Jon Jo worked at the list, to find what was possible.
It was Bren's second day in the office. The office was an offshoot of the Department of the Environment. He had been allocated a room on the second floor at the back of a new building that was called Progress House. Room 2/63/B was protected by a Chubb lock in addition to a Yale lock. Hobbes had introduced him to a manager, explained that Mr Brennard was the new representative of Audit and Cash Flow Control from London. Any file he wished to see, it would be provided. The manager was plainly anxious to have nothing to do with him. He gave him one swift look, hostility and nervousness mingled, and closed the door on him. For the second day, Bren had studied the new Downpatrick sewage scheme and the proposed extension of the dual carriageway out of Strabane, and the proposed revision of the salary structure for clerical workers at the Department's main office.
His room was a model of Civil Service Spartan. His table, his chair, and two more chairs under the Venetian blind which was drawn down over the window. There was a map of Northern Ireland all over one wall, a calendar beside the door, above a hip high wall safe. On a shelf behind his chair were three telephones, one black, one green, and one white. Song Bird's line, the switchboard's line, and the third one, which was purring at him.
'Yes?'
'Me, out the main door, turn left, 150 yards or so, same side, a bus stop. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes, the Astra.'
Bren took the Browning pistol from the safe and tucked it into the back of his waist. He took his anorak from the hook on the door.
He sat again in his chair. Every five minutes he checked his watch. It was what he wanted, more than anything he knew, to be with Cathy Parker.
Twenty minutes after her call, to the minute, she drew up at the bus stop. He smiled his surprise at her. She looked terrific.
He shouted, 'Where's my red coat?' It had been on the hook beside the front door the night before, it was not there now.
His mother was close to him, getting the older children ready for school. She eyed him. Must have been needling her, sensing there was crisis between the two of them and not knowing the cause of it.
Siobhan called, 'It's dirty.'
'I wants it.'
'It's for the wash.'
'Shit, woman, I want my red coat.'
He saw Francis, his satchel over his shoulders, back away from him, and Doloures watched him with a coldness because she was her mother's child and schooled to despise obscenity.
Siobhan came out of the kitchen. She carried a crumpled red anorak, and there were dirt stains on it and paint smears.
'There's your coat, if it's important to you to look like: tinker
