All the men could see the front door of Mrs Byrne's house, in the first row of houses that faced the barracks.
No chat, no cigarettes.
They were readied, the guns were armed.
Mossie Nugent's mother's cousin lived in the second line of house's. It was the sort of estate that he thought Siobhan might have wanted to live on, if they had not been so far down the I lousing Executive list, if they had not had to live with his mother.
Vinny Devitt was driving… They had come the long way, down to Edendork, then back towards Dungannon on the country road that would bring them to Killyman Road about opposite the road into the estate. Jacko not able to stop talking, yapping louder and faster the closer they came to the estate. Malachy breathing harder, like he'd a blockage. Vinny missing two gear changes, as if he were first time on a driving test. Mossie shared the back seat with Jacko and the 50-calibre that was wrapped in the old bedspread, pink flowers on yellow…
Devitt, driving like the little arsehole he was, turning into the estate.
Pretty quiet 'cos it was lunchtime. Lunchtime in the officers' mess across the Killyinan Road and up the hill.
Mossie pulled the snub barrelled pistol from his pocket, held it against is chest. His hands sweated inside the thin rubber gloves.
‘’You right, Malachy? Vinny?'
Jacko quiet, Malachy heaving breath. Vinny Devitt pulling on the brake.
A dozen paces from the car to Mrs Byrne’s front door. Number 17.
Mossie felt his flesh shiver inside the quilting of the anorak. He climbed out. He walked, stiff-legged, from the car to the door of Mrs Byrne's. On the pavement, outside her door by the young cherry tree, he looked right and he looked left, and he saw no one. It was lunchtime. He held the pistol hidden inside the anorak. He looked behind him. Three white faces in the car staring back at him… Shit, and there was a car coming down the road, maybe 100 yards away, should be in and out of sight by the time it got level. Remembering what the bitch had said to him. Didn't know when, didn't know from where. Trying to remember each last word the bitch had said to him…
He rang the bell. Christ, and he wantei d to piss. They had both doors part open behind him, ready to come running when he bullocked inside, and he could see Jacko's legs half out and the jutted tip of the old bedspread, pink flowers on yellow. Wait till the car is past, you daft buggers Taking her time, Mrs goddamn Byrne. He tucked the pistol further into his anorak and turned his back on the road. He’d bundle her back in. His job, to watch Mrs goddamn Byrne, while Devitt stayed in the car, while Jacko and Malachy put the 50 -calibre up in the front bedroom.
'Who's wanting me?'
He spun She was a tiny woman, nothing to her, at the side of the house, holding a big plastic basket of washing.
It was because he had turned, because he faced up the road and into the estate, that he saw two men jump from the car stopped on the rold.
The frozen moment…
Mossie looked up the road Two men spilling from a car, black overalls, black balaclavas, black short -barrel rifles. Jacko, his back to the men, bent under the weight of the old bedspread, and At Malachy halfway round the car to help him. Mis Byrne piping, What's you wanting,,?'
He turned again, There were two more men, dark dressed, coming up the road, threatening, into the estate, armed.
The first shots.
Nugent wheeling, spinning
The windscreen in front of Devitt frosted, then holed, then disintergrated. Vinny Devitt’s head, gone.
He was holding the pistol out in front of his chest, and the tiny woman heaved the washing basket at him. There was a shirt snagged on his shoulders and a pair of knickers falling from the red material of his anorak. He threw the pistol at Mrs Byrne and ran.
Jacko was on his back, and writhing, and the bedspread that was half across him and the weight of the heavy machine gun pinioned him. He never saw Malachy.
A shot clattered into the masonry above him. He ran past the front of the next house. Another shot. He half tripped on low wire dividing two front gardens, stumbled, regained his balance. The whine of a ricochet going off the pavement and by him. He turned into the path between the houses. His ears were deafened. His eyes were misted. He charged through a dug vegetable garden, slithering. No more shots, not since he had found the cover of the houses. He launched himself at the garden's back fence, battered his way through it. There was open waste ground ahead of him.
Mossie ran as fast as his damaged hip allowed.
He ran for his life and the red anorak billowed from his body.
Bren saw it all from the watchtower.
He was back from the firing slit, behind the sentry. Cathy was beside him, reaching onto her toes for the height she needed and peering through binoculars.
Bren could hear the shots.
It was a tableau in front of him. It was a grandstand view. He felt as though he had been hammered with a fist into the pit of his stomach.
There was just the bile taste in his mouth.
He looked straight through the broken windscreen of the car and he could see the slumped head of the driver. He looked past the offside of the car and he could see the young fellow, jeans and denim jacket, lying still on his stomach. He looked past the near-side of the car and he could see the thrashing arms of the third man He looked past the car and he could see the two soldiers walking easily down the slope of the hill, their weapons at their shoulders No haste, no urgency. And there were two more soldiers jogging up the road to meet them, one circling, _ still jogging, backwards, to cover behind them. But there was no movement, it seemed, anywhere in the estate, not even a door slammed.
One of the soldiers bent over the man on the ground at the nearside of the car, then lifted the cloth beside the man, lifted it away from a heavy machine gun by the look of it. The soldier crouched once more over the man. Bren heard the shot.
The helicopter was already in the air, coming low over the watchtower, deafening the peace.
Bren yelled, 'Are you satisfied…?'
Cathy didn't raise her voice. 'It was to protect the source.'
'Is any source worth that, bloody tell me?'
She lowered the binoculars. She looked him square in the eyes. 'The source is worth everything.'
The helicopter perched in the grassy patch beside the Killyman Road.
The four soldiers loped towards its open door. The bodies they left behind them.
The fight had gone from him. He swayed on his feet. He felt her hand at his elbow. Cathy steadied him.
'How far will you go to protect the source?'
'As far as it takes,' Cathy said.
9
Through the wall behind the bed head he heard his mother's coughing.
Her chest was worse this winter. At the foot of the bed he heard their little Mary shifting in her sleep.
He lay on his back. He stared up into the blackness. The best years of their lives, his and Siobhan's, had been before the bitch had her nails in him. They were good years in Birmingham. In the same bed, shipped back with all their furniture, he had told his Siobhan that it was necessary for them to return to Ireland. She had cried and submitted. He thought that she had come back with him because she had no other choice. She was hard against him, his arm slipped gently around her shoulder.
'You's alright…?' He had thought she was asleep.
