the complex. Eight hundred and fifty staff ensured that the prison ran smoothly.
Ten of those officers were stepping briskly along with the prisoners now, one on either side of the men to be released. Leary looked at their faces but found no trace of emotion there.
The officer at the head of the column brought it to a halt with some curt commands and Leary stood patiently as the doors were opened mechanically.They slid apart to reveal the car park beyond.
There were a number of vehicles there, including outside-broadcast units from television stations on both sides of the border.
But it was the large, white, twelve-seater minibus parked twenty yards away that caught Leary’s eye. This vehicle would take him and his companions back across the border into the Republic.
Home.
He smiled to himself and gripped his holdall more tightly.
The formalities of release papers had already been completed within the complex itself, and the first man clambered up into the waiting minibus and took a seat at the rear.
Leary dug in his pocket and found a roll-up. He lit it and dragged heavily.
All the men except Leary were now on board.
‘Come on, Leary.’
The voice came from behind him.
‘Don’t you want to go home?’
The prison officer was looking fixedly at Leary who merely took another drag on his cigarette.
‘Think yourself lucky you’re not spending another fifteen years inside like you should be,’ the uniformed man told him.
‘Like you will be?’ Leary said. ‘I mean, you’re the one with the life sentence, aren’t you? Sure, you go home every night, you’re not locked up like I was, but you’ve spent all your working life inside this place and you’ll finish it here too.’ He nodded towards the officer’s key chain. The length of that chain shows your seniority, doesn’t it? It also shows you’ve spent your whole life keeping men from their freedom. Are you proud of that?’
The officer leant close to Leary, his voice low.
‘I keep scum like you away from decent folk,’ he hissed.
‘Not any more.’ Leary smiled and tossed away his cigarette. He clambered on to
the bus and slumped into a seat on the right-hand side.
The driver waited a moment longer then guided the vehicle down the driveway that led away from the prison.
Leary was aware of the television cameras being turned in their direction.
Some of the men near him covered their faces. Leary looked out of the window and smiled at them.
It would take a couple of hours to reach the border so he decided to get some sleep. He never had a problem dozing off and could snatch a rest anywhere. The low babble of conversation from the other men only served to hasten his oblivion.
Within ten minutes he was asleep, blissfully unaware of the countryside and ignorant of the towns and
villages they passed through on the way to the border. The minibus bumped over a cattle grid but even that didn’t wake Vincent Leary.
Two of the men on the back seat were playing cards, engrossed in their game.
The others were either talking or lost in their own thoughts.
None of them had noticed the dark-brown Corsa that had been following them for the last fifteen minutes.
w
hat the fuck’s going on?’
The shout came from one of the men on the back seat of the minibus.
The vehicle had stopped so suddenly that it had skidded for three or four yards, finally coming to a halt on a road that wound tortuously between high hedges and thickly planted trees. Beyond lay fields.
It was from one of these fields that the tractor had emerged. Masked by the trees and foliage, the farm vehicle had appeared as if from thin air, thick clods of mud falling from its huge rear tyres.
The bus driver had reacted quickly, slamming on the brakes as the Massey Ferguson rumbled on to the narrow thoroughfare, blocking the other vehicle’s route.
High up in the cab, the tractor driver drew a deep breath, seemingly as shaken by the near collision as the men on the minibus had been.
Vincent Leary woke from his nap and peered at the tractor.
One of the men from the back seat of the bus was making his way to the door, gesturing angrily to the driver of the tractor.
‘Tell him to get out of the way,’ he hissed to the bus driver.‘Stupid bastard could have killed us.’
Leary looked on impassively as the tractor driver waved an apologetic hand and prepared to guide the farm vehicle off the road.
He turned the key in the ignition.
The tractor’s engine sputtered and died.
He tried again. Nothing.
The Massey Ferguson remained immobile, a large, red barricade to the progress of the minibus.
‘Jesus,’ murmured one of the other men wearily. ‘What’s wrong with this fucking idiot?’
Vincent Leary sat up in his seat, looking first at the tractor then to his left and right. The thick hedges and dense trees made it difficult to see beyond the grassy fringe that ran along both sides of the road.
The tractor driver was still trying, vainly, to start his yehicle but it remained where it had stopped.
‘Did anyone take a course in mechanics while they were inside?’ cailed a voice from the back of the bus. ‘It looks like this guy’s going to need some help.’
The other men laughed.
Leary looked at the tractor driver again, his brow furrowing slightly. The man was looking beyond the minibus at the road behind them.
Looking for what?
Leary turned in his seat and saw nothing but when he looked back, the man was still staring agitatedly in that same direction.
Vincent Leary got to his feet and made for the rear of the bus, looking out of the large window. He was the first to see the dark-brown Corsa approaching.
‘We’ve got company,’ he announced.
The car slowed down then came to a halt about twenty yards behind the minibus.
This bastard will have traffic backed up all the way to Belfast soon,’ another voice called.
Leary looked at the car then the tractor. Its driver waited a moment longer then jumped down from the cab, sprinting off into the gap in the hedge from where he had first emerged.
Simuitaneously, two men clambered out of the Corsa. Both were wearing woollen masks, only their eyes visible through small slits.
Both were carrying guns.
Leary recognised the weapons as Sterling AR-S 80s. Assault rifles with twenty-round magazines. The two men swung the rifles up to their shoulders and aimed them at the bus.
From the dirt track ahead two other men stepped on to the road. They also wore masks. They were also armed.
‘Get out of the fucking bus,’ roared one of the men from the Corsa.
For interminable seconds those inside the minibus froze.
Leary swallowed hard.
‘What the fuck do we do?’ one of the other men asked, his voice cracking slightly.
‘Just what they tell us,’ murmured Leary.
‘Get off the bus now,’ bellowed the man again, his finger now resting on the trigger of the assault rifle.
One by one, the men did as they were instructed.
