could almost see the cogs turning; he thought he'd cracked it here, he was going to get some easy money out of this greenhorn.
'Fuck you, asshole, you owe me a new sleeping bag! Look at my clothes you've pissed all over me, you fucking animal! Give me some money, man!'
He was certainly going for an Oscar.
'Do you know who I am? Fucking piss on me, man, I'll fucking kick your ass!'
I needed to take advantage of this. I went up to the window and started banging hard. If there was security, he should come investigate. I'd just play the innocent needing protection from this madman.
I banged so hard I thought the glass would break, making sure all the time that I had my back to the camera. It sparked up the homeless guy even more because he thought I was panicking.
He started to come up the stairs. I kept on looking inside the building. There were no used ashtrays in sight, no magazines lying open on chairs, no TV on; the furniture was well arranged, the chair by the reception area was neatly under the desk. There was nothing to show that anyone was around.
Nearly on top of me now, I heard, 'Fucking asshole!'
I turned, opened my jacket, and put my hand on the pistol.
He saw it and stopped in his tracks.
'Ah, for fuck's sake!
Fucking hell!' He backed off, started to retreat down the stairs, his eyes fixed on the pistol.
'Fucking cops,' he muttered.
I had to try hard not to laugh.
'Fucking cops, piss on me every fucking which way!'
I waited for him to disappear. The guy thought he had problems this was the second time in two days that I'd had piss all over me. I felt sorry for him, though; I thought about the amount of time he'd probably spent finding himself a snug little retreat, well concealed from predators and nicely warmed by the air-conditioning outlets and other machinery tucked underneath. Then some dickhead comes and empties his bladder all over the house.
It took me fifteen minutes to get back to the hotel. I opened the door nice and quiet. Kelly was in kid heaven, not having had to take a bath or clean up her mess, just falling asleep surrounded by candy and cookies.
I got undressed, took a shower and shaved, then stuffed the clothes into the hotel laundry bag. The duffel was getting pretty full now with dirty and bloodstained clothes. I was down to my last change. I got dressed again, tucked the pistol into my waistband, put my coat on, and set the alarm for 5:30. I was half-awake anyway when the alarm went. I'd been tossing and turning all night, and now I couldn't really be bothered to get up. People must feel like this when they go to a job they really hate.
I finally got myself to my feet, went over to the window, and opened the curtains. We were just below eye level with the highway and almost in its shadow. Headlights lumbered silently toward me from out of the gloom; in the other lanes, taillights disappeared back into the darkness like slow-moving tracers. It wasn't time yet.
I let the curtain fall and turned down the heat, got the coffee machine gurgling, and went into the bathroom.
As I took a leak I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a scarecrow with creases on my face where I'd been lying on some crayons. I took my jacket off, turned the collar in on my polo shirt, and splashed my face in the sink.
I went back to the bedroom. The brew wasn't ready yet, and my mouth felt as if a gorilla had dumped in it. He'd certainly been in the room while we were both asleep, throwing soda cans and food everywhere. I picked up an already opened can of Mountain Dew and took a couple of flat, warm sips.
Until first light, there wasn't that much to do. I was used to this; so much of my life had been hurry up and wait. I put the chair by the window and opened the curtains again. Looking at the highway, I couldn't make out whether it was still raining or if it was just vehicle spray in the headlights that made it look that way.
By the end of a quarter hour I could begin to make out the shape of the cars as well as their headlights. It was time.
There was no need to wake Kelly; the more she slept, the easier my life would be. I checked that I had the key card and moved up to the roof.
Rain danced on the metal roof of the elevator housing. I pulled myself up and lay there getting soaked front and back as I pressed the Play button on the camera and tested the flashing light. I checked to see that I still had the correct site picture and that the lens hadn't misted up. It had. I cursed at myself because I should have put on another plastic bag to keep the moisture from getting in overnight. I started to wipe the moisture off with my cuff and suddenly felt as if I were between two worlds. Behind me roared the early morning traffic, yet to my front, toward the river, I could just about hear birds giving their early morning song. I was almost enjoying it. The moment was soon shattered when the first air craft of the day took off and disappeared into low cloud. Lens dry, I rechecked the camera position, made sure it was recording, and closed the trash bags.
It was now nearly 6 a.m. I went back to the room and my chair by the window, coffee in hand. I smiled as I watched a couple come out of the room next door, hand in hand. Some thing about them didn't quite match up. I made a bet with my self that they'd leave in separate cars.
For the hundredth time, my mind drifted to the telephone call I'd had with Kev. Pat had said that if it was PIRA, there could be a connection with drugs, Gibraltar, and the Americans. My hard drive went into free wheel because something about the Gibraltar job had always puzzled me.
The year 1987 had been PIRA's annus horribilis, and as Detachment operators in Northern Ireland, Euan and I had done our fair share to fuck them over. At the beginning of the year they'd promised their faithful 'tangible success in the war of national liberation,' but it hadn't taken long for that to turn to rat shit. In February, PIRA fielded twenty-seven Sinn Fein candidates in the Irish general election, but they man aged to scrape only about a thousand votes each. Few people in the South gave a damn about reunification with Northern Ireland; they were far more concerned with other issues like unemployment and the crippling level of taxation. It showed how out of touch PIRA was, and how successful the Anglo Irish accord was proving. Ordinary people really did believe that London and Dublin could work together to bring about a long-term solution to the Troubles.
PIRA couldn't take that lying down and must have decided they needed a morale booster. Their knee-jerk reaction was the murder, on Saturday, April 25, of Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, one of the province's most senior judges. Euan and I saw firsthand the celebrations in some of PIRA's illegal drinking dens that weekend. We even had a few drinks ourselves as we hung around. The players loved what had happened.
Not only had they gotten rid of one of their worst enemies, but recriminations were flying left, right, and center between London and Dublin. The Anglo-Irish accord, which had done so much to undermine PIRA's power base, was itself now in question.
However, barely had the hangovers gone away than PIRA had another disaster. Two weeks later, at Loughall in County Armagh, guys from the Regiment ambushed PIRA's East Tyrone Brigade while they were attempting to bomb a police station. From a force of 1,000 hard-core players in 1980, PIRA's strength had dwindled to fewer than 250, of which maybe 50 were members of active service units. Our successes had further cut this to 40, which meant that the operation at Loughall had wiped out one-fifth of PIRA's hard liners at a stroke. It was their biggest loss in a single action since 1921. If this continued, all of PIRA would soon be riding around in the same taxi.
The massive defeat at Loughall was followed soon afterward by a disastrous showing by Gerry Adams in the British general election. Sinn Fein's vote plummeted, with the Catholic vote switching to the moderate SDLP. Then, on October 31, during Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin, French Customs seized a small freighter called the Eksund off the coast of Brittany. On board was an early Christmas present to PIRA from Colonel Gaddafi--hundreds ofAK47s, tons of Semtex, several ground-to-air missiles, and so much ammunition it was a miracle that the ship stayed afloat.
The humiliation was complete. No wonder Gerry Adams and PIRA wanted revenge and some sort of publicity coup to show people like Gaddafi and those Irish Americans who contributed to Noraid that they hadn't completely lost their grip.
On November 8, Remembrance Day, they planted a thirty-pound bomb with a timer at the town memorial in Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Eleven civilians were killed in the explosion, and more than sixty were seriously injured. Outrage at the atrocity was instant and worldwide.
In Dublin, thousands lined up to sign a book of condolence. In Moscow, not a place well known for its compassion, the TASS news agency denounced what it called 'barbaric murders.' But worst of all for PIRA, even
