Pray for Us Sinners (6 page)

“Go ahead.”

He took his time selecting a Woodbine, lighting up. He looked at her through the smoke. She was shaking her head slowly, the dark wings of her hair moving, framing her face. He could not meet her gaze as she said, “Two of his daughters are in my class.”

He rose and leaned across the table, reaching out his hand to comfort her. To touch her swaying hair. But she moved away from him.

“I don't know what their mother was thinking. She sent them to school today.”

He could see the film of moisture before her eyes.

“The younger one, Deirdre, asked me, ‘Why, miss?'” She flicked the back of one hand across her left eye, inhaled, and stared into his being. “What do you say to a little girl, Davy?”

He looked away.

“What do you say? He died for Ireland? He's with the angels? It was an accident?”

The cigarette shook between his fingers.

“It was no accident, Davy, and you know it.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry? For God's sake, is that all? You never see what your bombs do. You're like those pilots in the Second World War. High above the carnage, conscience clean.”

Davy slumped back into his chair. She was right. He hadn't seen. Didn't want to see. He'd seen enough the day Da died.

She stood. “Do you remember what I said after the Abercorn?”

Davy clasped his big hands like a supplicant altar boy, bowed his head, and waited.

“Davy, I love you.”

He looked up, a tiny smile beginning, but it was banished when she said, “Two years ago I asked you to get out. Now I'm telling you.”

“Fiona…”

“You choose, Davy. The Provos or me.”

“But…”

“No buts, Davy.” She stepped back. “I'm going out.”

“I'll come with you.”

“No, thank you.” The ice in her words chilled him like the touch of a corpse's hand, and he could do nothing but stand and watch as she left.

She hadn't come home until the small hours. He'd pretended to be asleep, not knowing what to say. He'd lain beside her until the morning, his eyes wide, his mind churning like a cement mixer with a slipped clutch. He hadn't moved when she rose, dressed, and left, pausing only to look down on him and whisper, “I love you, Davy McCutcheon.”

He'd spent the day bleary-eyed, heart-sore, waiting, doing little things about the house—vacuuming, dusting, mending the broken latch on the gate to the yard, anything to occupy his mind. But school would be over now, and she would be coming home.

Davy heard her key in the lock, the door opening, and her footsteps in the hall. He rose. She stood in the doorway, a pile of exercise books under one arm, her raincoat and head scarf soaked. He made no move to go to her.

“Well?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I can't.”

“All right.” She set the books on the table, turned, and left.

Davy stood, hands dangling by his sides. He loved her, loved her more than the life in his body, but …

But Da had died for Ireland, as hundreds of others had; many more had sacrificed their freedom, their homes, their loved ones. He, Davy McCutcheon, had made the Provo Declaration. He had given his boyhood and young manhood to the grey, grim “Cause,” and now he must give up the only lovely thing he had ever owned, he thought. He had no choice. He knew he'd never had a choice, never since the days Da had spun his stories of Kathleen ni Houlihan. Ireland was in Davy's soul like Jesus Christ in the heart of a Carmelite nun.

He heard her footsteps on the stair. Owned? He had never owned Fiona Kavanagh, he corrected himself. She had given herself, and now he had returned the gift he cherished above all. For the Cause.

 

TEN

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11

As Marcus Richardson had known in theory and discovered nine days earlier in practice, a motor vehicle loaded with explosives is a powerful weapon. The concept was the brainchild of Seamus Twomey, a bookmaker who had been involved in the IRA's Operation Harvest. He, like Davy, had quit in the early sixties but returned to offer his services in 1969. He had been one of the group that had met to consider splitting from the Official IRA and founding the Provisionals, and he became one of the Provos' leaders when the schism occurred.

In 1970 Twomey was adjutant of the Belfast Brigade, Provisional IRA—the post now held by Sean Conlon—and second in command to Billy McKee. He rose to become Officer Commanding. In March 1973 Twomey moved to Provisional IRA General Headquarters in Dublin.

Twomey's gift to the PIRA, the car bomb, had allowed them to score a number of successes, but sometimes the Provos miscalculated. On July 31, 1972, three car bombs were placed in the main street of the village of Claudy. The Provos had intended to limit the number of casualties by telephoning a warning. The telephone booth they'd counted on using had been vandalized. No warning was given and the village was devastated. Nine people were killed at once and two died later.

The Security Forces countered by making it illegal to park an automobile within town limits unless someone remained in the vehicle. They reasoned that, while the Provos may have been fanatics, they were not a bunch of kamikaze pilots. But even such measures did not prevent devices being ferried by car for delivery into the heart of Belfast.

On the night of Monday, November 6, 1972, the army erected an eight-foot-high wire fence with forty-one gates around the centre of the city. No vehicles were permitted to pass except in emergencies.

Behind the fence, the department stores—Robinson and Cleavers, the Athletic Stores, and Brands and Norman's—and such smaller businesses as travel agents, jewelers, bookstores, tobacconists', cafés, and restaurants, cowered.

This Monday morning, as he did every day, a blind man had come to sit on a folding stool outside Robinson and Cleavers, cloth cap on the pavement before him. With a fiddler's bow he drew sweet, melancholy tunes from a saw grasped between his knees. The shoppers and the businessmen, students and labourers, nurses, and all whose lawful pursuits took them to the city core strode by him, hiding in their own thoughts, all pretending that there was no danger, all wishing fervently to get away from Belfast. A few—a very few—dropped coins in the saw player's cap as they hurried by. None lingered to listen.

And over all, behind the barricade, the green-domed City Hall towered silently, brooding like the commander of the besieged garrison of a veldt town in the Boer War who wondered not if, but when, the next assault would come.

A young, fair-haired woman, smartly dressed in a cashmere sweater and plaid miniskirt beneath a lightweight, reversible raincoat, waited until one of the RUC constables at a gate in the fence finished rummaging through her handbag. There was nothing inside to raise anyone's suspicions. A wallet, dark glasses, several tissues, some elastic bands, powder, mascara, keys, loose change, a rosary, a Saint Christopher medallion, and a lipstick. Max Factor's “Coral Pink.”

Nothing out of the ordinary at all, and yet, as Moira Ryan waited, she could feel the moisture in her armpits, on the palms of her hands. But Brendan had said it would be all right. And Moira trusted Brendan McGuinness.

“Carry on, miss.” The policeman returned her bag and watched her hurry through, staring at the swell of her breasts under her mackintosh, wishing he'd been allowed to body search her.

*   *   *

Brendan McGuinness waited in the back of a windowless Morris Eight van. He'd driven it from Belfast to a deserted airfield near Kirkistown, on the Ards Peninsula in County Down. He shifted on the rough seat, wondering for a moment how the girl was getting on. She should be through the security fence by now. Another small operation, like the attempt on the life of that UVF bastard, Bertie Dunne, but one that would give the Brits something else to think about. He had to keep the bastards on the hop. The more of them that were preoccupied with ensuring the everyday safety of the civilian population, the fewer resources they would have to interfere with the major coup he had been planning—planning with only one other man privy to his thoughts—since McGuinness had got word of the opportunity to strike a devastating blow.

But he needed more detailed information about the target.

Where the hell was his contact? He should have been here twenty minutes ago. Brendan McGuinness rapped his fist against the paneling of the van's side. He heard another car coming closer. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, taking reassurance from the Smith and Wesson automatic beneath his fingers.

The engine stopped. He heard a door slam, footsteps on the concrete surface of the old runway, and a knocking on the van's back door. McGuinness bent forward to open the door.

He saw a short, heavy-set man, hair trimmed in a crew cut. He could not make out the man's features as he climbed in and shut the door.

“I've got it,” he said.

Brendan forgot his irritation at the man's tardiness. “All of it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Tell me.”

*   *   *

Moira Ryan passed the saw player, pausing to drop a tenpence coin into his cap, hearing his “thank you, madam.” She wondered how a blind man would know she was a woman. He must have heard the click of her high heels.

She joined the line of shoppers outside Robinson and Cleavers and waited her turn to be searched again—this time by a private security guard—entered the store, and made her way to the women's clothing department. A shop assistant helped her take off her beige raincoat, admired her cashmere sweater, and gave advice about this spring's fashions. It took her twenty minutes to pick out four dresses she wanted to try on.

The assistant showed her to a changing room, apologized because there were so many other patrons this morning, told the young woman to take her time.

Moira let herself into the cubicle, carrying the dresses and her raincoat over one arm. After closing the door, she hung the dresses on a peg on the chipboard wall and turned her raincoat inside out. When she slipped the coat on, the outside was dark green.

She twisted her long hair into a knot on the top of her head and secured it with elastic bands from her now-open handbag. Her hair was soon covered by a head scarf. The tissues were next. She stuffed them into a pocket of one of the dresses, a pretty paisley-patterned one, hanging on the hook.

Moira hesitated as she removed the dark glasses and the Max Factor “Coral Pink” lipstick. She took a deep breath, twisted the base of the lipstick, listened until she heard a crunching noise, and slipped it into the nest of tissues. Then she put on the sunglasses and let herself out of the cubicle.

The assistant was at the far side of the department, serving another customer. As Moira passed, she saw the shopgirl glance in her direction, hesitate, and shake her head, clearly not recognizing the short-haired woman in the green coat and sunglasses.

Twenty-five minutes had elapsed from the time she entered the store to the moment she left and joined the crowds on the street outside.

*   *   *

The same twenty-five minutes had brought a satisfied smile to Brendan McGuinness's one-eyed face. He had heard even more than he had hoped for when he had said, “Tell me.”

“You'll like this,” the squat man said.

“Get on with it.”

“Right. First, the technical stuff is just about set. One of our people with the GPO has finished his job at the Brits' end.”

“Good.”

“The equipment for your end'll be ready when you move to your new quarters.”

McGuinness nodded. “I'll look after that. The move's next Sunday.”

“Fair enough.”

“What about the other operation?”

“I don't know the dates yet, but one of them's coming, just like I told you last week.”

“Look. We can't mount an attack if we don't know the time and place.” McGuinness let an edge of irritation creep in.

The man opposite did not seem to be bothered. “Hold your horses. I'll look after that. My lot'll be handling the security, so they will. As soon as I hear, you'll hear, all right?”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm not fucking well sure. Are you sure the sun'll come up tomorrow? But the British are having their general election on the twenty-eighth. Both Ted Heath and Harold Wilson have said Northern Ireland will be a priority if their party gets in.”

“That doesn't mean either one'll come here.” The news about the new surveillance equipment was good, but this uncertainty was not what McGuinness wanted to hear.

“Jesus Christ! Do you think that's the sort of thing an English politician would be yelling from the rooftops?”

“No.”

“Didn't I just tell you my mob are to be in charge of security for a prime minister's visit? The boss had me in yesterday and told me to start planning for it. My men are running round like bees on a hot brick. Do you think he'd waste our time like that if it wasn't going to happen?”

“No.”

“So, stop getting your knickers in a twist. It's money in the bank one of them will come, and I'll give you the word the minute I hear. You start thinking about how to take him out.”

It was then that a slow smile of grim satisfaction split Brendan McGuinness's face from ear to ear.

“Now,” said the man, crouching as he rose, “I'm away the fuck out of here. I'll be in touch.”

Brendan nodded, his mind already focused on how he would arrange to have a British prime minister killed. And it didn't matter to him, not one bit, if the bugger was Conservative or Labour.

He sat back against the wall of the van, barely hearing the slam of its back door. He'd need to give his agent a while to get clear, but he'd not waste the time. There was planning to do.

It was unlikely the PIRA could get a sniper close enough, he thought. It would have to be some kind of explosive device. He prayed the consignment of the new Czech plastique, Semtex, would get through on time.