Brute Force

When I replayed what Mansour had just told us, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle started to tumble into place.

After Enniskillen, PIRA went into meltdown. Very soon afterwards, the leadership entered into secret talks with Downing Street.

Six years later, the culmination of those talks, PIRA announced a ceasefire and everyone gave everyone else a hug.

Four years after that the ink was drying on the Good Friday Agreement. PIRA disbanded. Apart from the odd bout of sectarian score-settling, the Troubles were over and there were even more hugs. An organization that had sworn never to give up the armed struggle until Ireland was 'free' had put its faith in negotiation with their sworn enemies. Looking back, it was little short of a miracle.

But miracles and PIRA didn't rub shoulders – not in my experience.

Mansour was watching me intently. He knew he was fucking with my head. 'You see now what I saw in my prison cell, Nick? An Irishman, a senior member of the IRA's leadership, did a deal with the devil – with the British government – because he knew that the armed struggle would never, ever amount to a solution. But he realized, too, that that simple concept – that there might be a peaceful way out of the Troubles – would never be accepted by his warmongering peers. So he set out single-handedly to show them that there was no hope in continuing what they were doing, that all their ventures were doomed to failure . . .'

Loughgall. The Eksund. The Bahiti. Each a large, compartmentalized PIRA operation, each a fuck-up and PR disaster. And that was because each phase was betrayed . . .

I glanced in the mirror. Lynn knew all this. He'd lived with this knowledge for years.

Mansour rubbed his hands. 'So, Al-Inn. I have shared a little. Now, please, it is your turn. Tell me, for old times' sake, about the Bahiti and why Lesser and his Palestinian whore are so important to you twenty years after the event.'

This time, not even Mansour's extravagant gestures could keep my eyes from the rear-view. But I never got as far as Lynn. My vision was too full of the vehicle sitting about half a K behind us.

Now I knew why the alarm had rung in my head.

It was the BMW 4x4 from the last filling station, and my subconscious had been trying to tell me that it had been on our tail ever since.

And each time I had moved to check my rear-view Mansour had done his best to distract me.

The fucker knew it was there . . . the fucker had made a phone call . . .

As I turned my eyes back to the road ahead, I saw that whatever problem we had developing behind us, it was nothing compared to the one that lay ahead.

103

The road was blocked by a JCB and a giant boulder that seemed to have fallen from its bucket.

I couldn't just head off-piste to avoid them. The road straddled a huge wadi with steep banks. The BMW was still about half a K away, but closing. No time to debate if this was a deliberate roadblock or a construction vehicle that had spilled its load.

I braked to a halt, simultaneously throwing the gearshift into reverse.

I accelerated back towards the BMW and kept the power on. Then I came off the power, transferred the weight to the back of the car, and threw the wheel hard right. The front of the car swung momentarily. Midway through, with the front wheels parallel to the road, I hammered the brake and clutch and wrenched the steering back the other way. As the car spun, I whipped the gearshift into first, came off the brake, applied some right foot and released the clutch. We'd done a complete 180 and were pointing back towards Tripoli. I put my foot down and accelerated hard.

The BMW driver was doing it the hard way, and was halfway through a three-point turn to get out of my way. I got a good view of him and his passenger as we closed. They were both wearing black leather jackets and definitely weren't locals. Then, while we were still about 100 metres apart, the passenger powered down his window and I caught a glimpse of an AK47.

I floored the accelerator and aimed straight at him. The Audi ploughed into his offside wing. The BMW slewed to the edge of the road, teetered for a second, and then toppled and rolled down into the wadi.

I jammed on the brakes and reversed until we were alongside.

Lynn screamed from the back seat as the AK reappeared through a shattered window.

The muzzle flashed.

Lynn threw open his door at the same time as I did, his .38 at the ready. I grabbed at Mansour as rounds started to puncture the bodywork. 'Out the fucking car!'

Automatic fire punctuated the frenzied shouts that echoed amongst the dunes.

Mansour twisted and tore away from my grip. There was another burst and he screamed once and dropped to the tarmac.

Lynn was to my right, static and firing at the muzzle flashes. He was calm and controlled, taking slow, deliberate shots. I ran further to the right to blindside them. Rounds zinged off the tarmac around my feet.

I jumped down into the wadi and ran towards the rear of the wrecked car. Shots were still being fired at Lynn.

I dropped to one knee, aimed the Makarov into the tangled metal and loosed off half a dozen rounds.