Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (25 page)

as such an uninterrupted spell of fine weather had never before
hit South Armagh, it was unlikely to start that summer. The few locals who Jack came into contact with
on that
morning
made some
comment about
the weather.
Some were
glad for
sunshine, while
others joked that this was the one day of summer they
were entitled to
and that Jack should make the most of it.
As Barry and Jack drove along the narrow country roads in a brown
Opel
car, both men silently
pondered the mission to come that night.
In South
Armagh folks
often kept to themselves and that
meant that
he could travel for
miles without
encountering another living
being.
On that
day the population was
out in force.
Couples were walking
hand in hand;
old people were driving at a snail’s speed into town to
do some
messages; and farmers were working in the fields giving a
sense
of reality to the expression,
making hay while the sun shines.
The further that they travelled away from the population centres the
fewer people they
encountered. The mean land in the mountains was
no good for growing crops; not even hay.
Jack
didn’t trust the man sitting next to him, and he was certain
that the man sitting next to him
didn’t trust Jack
either. There was
nothing sinister about that
mutual lack
of trust, and in the world in
which they both walked, it was natural and necessary. Any time that he
was with Barry alone, Jack felt on edge—there was simply something
more sinister about Barry than any of the others—he was not an easy
man to read and he made an effort to keep all around him guessing by
his unpredictable actions. If Barry had always been recklessly jovial, or
if he had always been an uncompromising hard-ass, then Jack would
have known exactly how to manage him—but Barry cycled through
many types
of mood, and none of those moods was predicable—Jack
never
knew which Barry
he would
encounter from
one
day to the
next.
He was
expecting the car to come to a
stop
down some country lane,
or in an isolated wooded area,
only for Barry to pull
out a
gun and justify
Jack’s
fears and
Barry
knew that he had this effect
their
small
circle
of
associates,
suspicions with
deadly
accuracy.
on Jack and most
of the others in
especially
amongst
the
younger
members,
and creating that
sense
of
unease gave
him
power
over
those around
him which meant that very few
of their number
ever

proposing. Even
with both front side windows down as far as they could go, the heat
on the inside of the car was stifling. That heat was magnified by the
mock leather upholstery
of the seats, but it did provide both men with
some kind
of cover—they
could hide the nervous sweat
oozing from
every part
of their bodies under the legitimate sweat
of the humid air
inside the car.

As usual Barry and the
the nature of their
mission.
summer clothing Jack assumed that the mission was not going to
be
anything
too
dangerous—camouflage
clothing
and
combat
boots
were the dress code for missions where the bullets would fly. This was
obviously a re-con mission
of some kind;
or perhaps the other terrorists in the cell wanted Jack out of the way for a few hours for some reason; and if that was the case then those few hours under the Irish sun
could have been his last. When the group got together to discuss one
of
their members in the absence of that
member, it was never good and
without exception it led to a
one-way
drive into the mountains. This
was always a real
concern to Jack. It wasn’t
only
Barry who
mistrusted Jack. Since he first met with a contact from the terror movement in a bar back in Belfast, there had always been a certain amount
of
mistrust and uncertainty
nailed to Jack as he worked his way up
through the ranks. He was, to put it
mildly, too good to be true. He
was supposedly the son of a dead Belfast woman who had been killed
in an accidental shooting by the British army. Jack, or Sean, as he was
known to the IRA, had been brought up in England and Scotland as
his mother had lived most of her adult life in London. She died during a
short visit
back to Belfast a few years
before Jack turned up in the
city. That much was true. It was just the part about Jack being her son
that was the lie. As part of that lie Jack let it be known that he wanted
to get revenge for the death of his mother, and that he was prepared to
go to any lengths to attain that goal. After waiting patiently for several
months the IRA finally made contact with Jack.

Jack’s first
mission was the assignation
of a young British soldier
who was
being set up with the help
of the girl he was seeing. Jack
didn’t
kill the soldier
but
he
made it look as if
he had. The
media,
under the
direction
of the government,
carried news
of the soldier’s
death and from that point on Jack was a fully fledged member of the

As both Barry and Jack were dressed in

terror group—or as fully fledged as the terrorists would allow. With
his Scottish accent
he could easily
get close to sensitive targets both
in Northern Ireland and back
on the UK Mainland.
An Irish accent
always generated suspicion. It was this one asset that made Jack a very
useful
member
of the
organisation,
but that same very
useful asset
made other members of the group, such as Barry, see him as someone
who was simply too good to be true. Too good to be true never happened in their world. Too good to be true lead to teams
of
dead IRA
men littering the streets of Britain as the SAS moved in and took them
out. There was no surrendering once an operation was set in motion as
the
unofficial shoot to kill
always
found the reaction
shoot to
kill policy slightly amusing—they
didn’t have a problem with
planting a bomb under the car
of a young soldier
or police officer,
or
spraying
a van filled with unarmed workmen as they set
out for an
honest
day’s work. But when similar tactics were used on them then
their political representatives screamed blue bloody
murder. It was a
mentality that
Jack’s own sense of right and wrong simply could not
fathom.

Jack sighed deeply. He was very good at controlling his emotions,
even when he was under the most intense pressure, but the heat and
the silly power game being played by Barry was really testing him on
that
particular
day. During the interview
process
before he was allowed to join the terror group, the IRA took him to an isolated farmhouse in the South
of Ireland. It was a tense meeting and at several
points during the meeting Jack believed that he was going to die. He
never
once flinched. He never
once lost
his cool. But in the heat
of
that car, on that day, on a mission that he knew very little about and
which would
probably turn
out to
be something
completely
inane,
his patience was beginning to wear thin. There was a real danger that
the heat would do what a gun pressed to the back
of his head could
not. He sighed again. Barry
did not respond. Barry liked playing this
game. Jack may have been a very useful asset. He had the accent and
he had a lifetime of paperwork behind him to prove to any nosey
official that he was really from Scotland, but
out there, in the wilds of
South
Armagh, Barry was very
much the top dog, and he would take
every opportunity to piss all over Jack.

by snarling self-satisfaction, and that self-satisfaction reminded Jack
that Barry was little more than a self-important asshole—the kind of
asshole that could be found in any place of work, and the kind of asshole who didn’t even realise how ridiculous they were and how much
his co-workers hated him. Nazi Germany had turned such creatures
into a deadly cult, but the rest of the world had too much of a sense of
humour to ever allow them to gain that much power. TheIRAwas not
the rest of the world and so Barry had found the only workplace in the
modern world that would actually put up with him and his nonsense.
“Well you could help me with a lot
of things Barry, but as you have
been acting like a complete arsehole towards me for months now, I
would doubt very
much that you will help me. I
know that you
are never going to trust me. Though I think that you don’t trust me
because I make you look bad. You talk a big game and you huff and
puff and do very little. I have been out there. I have killed. I have put
my life on the line for our cause, again and again. You don’t like me
because I expose you as the bull shitter that you really are. So, save this
cloak and dagger bullshit for someone who might be impressed by it
and tell me why the hell we are out here.”

Barry
grinned but
he
didn’t turn to face Jack. It was an uneasy
grin. It was the grin of a man who was just about to strike out. Jack
rebuked himself. He had let the situation get the better of him and he
had placed his entire cover at risk.

“You know that everything that we do is on a need to know basis,”
Barry said. “If we get pulled over by the army and taken away for interrogation then you will not be able to tell them anything as you will
not know anything. It is as simple as that.”

Barry took the higher ground and made Jack look like the irrational
one. It was the IRA’s infamous code
of silence and Jack did not
have a legitimate argument to make against it. There was silence for a
short time. Then, if only to alleviate the boredom, Jack started to play
with Barry.