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  Mansour and the woman made their way back to the quay and disappeared into the maze of warehouses as Two Cells went onto the ship and started chatting with the skipper.

  Liam Brian Duff was a lot more than a sailor boy. He'd been caught up in the events of Bloody Sunday, and joined the IRA the very next day. He was just sixteen. The following year, he was caught trying to bomb a government building.

  Sentenced to six years, he shared cells in the Maze prison with some major league Republican icons. By the time he was released, Duff was quite the rising star. He came back onto British radar when he was arrested by the French police five or six years ago. He'd been travelling with a false passport on his return from a Hezbollah training camp in Lebanon – evidence of his role in fostering the international ties the IRA and Sinn Fein were building with the Middle East, and most particularly with Gaddafi's Libya.

  I kept my binos trained on the ship as Duff checked the crane was lowering the boxes into the hold correctly. Then Lynn gunned the engine and I put them in the foot well as he drove us out of the port and along the coast road.

  'Take a different route. We don't want to get stuck at another checkpoint.'

  Lynn nodded.

  We'd had a close shave on the way to the docks. Gaddafi's boys had set up a checkpoint where there hadn't been one on our dry run a few hours earlier. Our papers were good and our cover story had held – we were Dutch oil-workers in transit, a couple of guys making an honest dollar in Colonel G's workers' paradise. After scrutinizing the papers and turning them round a few times, the sentry had waved us on our way, but I wasn't in a hurry to risk an action replay. We had far bigger things to worry about.

  3

  He parked on a rocky headland about a K from the port. The rocks glistened in the light from the docks, and so did the plastic bottles and general crap spread across the beach. It looked more like a landfill site than a holiday destination. Perhaps that was why Club 18-30 had given it a miss this year.

  'Everything in place? Any questions?'

  'Yep – and no.' I clambered out of the jeep, leaving my cover docs on the seat. I grabbed the re-breather and fins from the back, and checked the karabiner was still hooked into the netting of the rope sack. All the gear I was going to use to get on board was inside.

  Without ceremony, Lynn was gone. He didn't want to be in the vicinity if I got lifted.

  I started to sort myself out on top of the landfill. I got the rebreather on my back. It was a commercial system, the sort underwater photographers use when they don't want to frighten the fish. A normal scuba tank is noisy and streams bubbles; re-breather apparatus prevents both by reusing the air you exhale.

  One of the small tanks on my back was pure oxygen; the other was normal air. The plastic tub between them was filled with soda lime. As I breathed out, the exhaled air was piped into the tub. The soda lime retained the carbon dioxide but let oxygen through, along with a little top-up from the oxygen bottle. It was ingenious, but that didn't mean I liked using it. If I'd wanted to fuck about underwater I'd have joined the navy.

  I attached my navigation aid, a 12cm luminous ball compass mounted on a hard plastic sheet. It hooked onto the re-breather harness and dangled down my chest, a bit like a map case.

  Fins in one hand, the sack in the other, I waded into the sea. It was freezing. The mask covered my face. I tightened the straps, dipped my head underwater and took a few breaths to make sure there was a tight seal.

  I put the fins on, and kicked off slowly and steadily. I'd insisted on calling them flippers in front of Lynn. At least it made me smile.

  I'd hooked my left arm through the net and I kept my hands down by my stomach while I finned. Its weight kept the rest of my body submerged.

  As I rounded the headland, I could see the lights of the docks in the distance. I lifted the plastic plate, checked the compass bearing was direct onto the boat I was after, and started to fin myself down about five metres below the surface. I took slow, normal breaths, which echoed in the silence. The soda lime gave the breathing mixture a citrus, acidic taste.

  I knew not to rush. If I did, the board would push upwards and I wouldn't be able to keep on-bearing. I pumped the fins methodically and kept my eyes glued to the luminous markings of the ball compass.

  It wasn't long before the dock lights glared overhead, and the silence was broken by a cacophony of turning screws and clanging hulls, and the demented buzz of a powerboat skimming across the harbour. I kept the ball compass up in front of me and stuck to my bearing.

  Even though I kept the pace slow and constant, I was starting to feel the strain now. Vast, barnacle-encrusted hulls hung in the water on either side of me. I just kept on-bearing; that was all I could do, short of popping up and checking.

  Two sleek, chiselled shapes rode the swell ahead of me, left and right of a larger, blunter craft.

  4

  I dived under the keel of the Bahiti. Pockmarked with barnacles and swirling seaweed – in sharp contrast to the patrol boats at either end – it was like the roof of a sea cave. The steamer's idling engines throbbed above me and metal clattered against metal.

  Two huge brass propellers glinted in the murky water ahead; they would start turning soon, to take us out of port – but not just yet, I hoped.

  The quay was now behind me. The Bahiti's bulbous stern swept out above the waterline and I kept out of sight beneath the overhang. I unclipped the compass and let it drop.

  I finned up slowly, brushing my hand against the hull from time to time to steady myself. The vibration from the engines pulsed up my arm. My head broke the surface; I was still sheltered by the overhang.

  There was clamour and movement above me. The world was unmuffled. I took off the mask and let it hang by its tube as I undid the catches on the re-breather and sent it the same way as the compass.

  Finning to keep my head above water, I felt around in the net and pulled out the modified mine magnet. Well, not so much modified as minus its mine. It was about twenty centimetres by twenty, with a thin rubber cushion cemented to one side to prevent a resounding clang inside the ship as the thing grabbed onto the hull, followed by a shower of grenades from the deck.

  I clipped the karabiner to the steel handle I'd welded onto the other side of the magnet, where the mine had been, then hung onto the net sack and waited for the crew of the Bahiti to get their shit together.

  For the best part of an hour the clanking and shouting and general fucking about carried on seven or eight metres above me, then the final one of the crates the Libyans had spent the last few hours loading slid into place a few inches the other side of the hull.

  There were only six crewmen – this rust-bucket was about cargo, not Caribbean cruises – but you wouldn't have known it from the amount of hollering and swearing as the gangplank was heaved aboard. By now my fingers were wrinkled and skeletal and had lost every shred of feeling.

  The engines rumbled into action and the hull vibrated like a jackhammer. The back rope was released from a bollard on the quay and splashed into the water about a metre from my head before being hauled aboard.

  The water behind me started to churn. I didn't know if this thing was going to get towed out by a tug, or leave under its own steam. It didn't matter either way, so long as nobody came and started messing about anywhere near me.

  The boat moved slowly away from the quay, but my legs still came up to the surface; I'd had to keep my fins on in case I got pinged and had to swim for it. Now we were under way, I could kick them off. I didn't plan to hang around much longer. I had to get on board before Liam and his mates got up a decent head of steam.

  It wasn't long before the lights of the harbour were behind us. The headland emerged from the shadows on my left.

  The propellers were kicking up a storm. My hands and arms were numb from the cold, and the strain of holding onto the net.

  I fished out a one-metre pole that could extend to ten. Next came a rolled-up ten-metre caving ladder with
12.5mm tubular alloy rungs suspended on galvanized 4mm steel wire, and a spring-mounted, four-pronged hook at the top. The whole thing weighed no more than about three kilos.

  All I had to do now was rig the ladder onto the pole, extend it one metre section by one metre section, twisting it to lock each time. Soon it was fully stretched and vertical, scraping against the side of the ship.

  Spray splashed my face. With my arm still hooked into the netting I started to manoeuvre the ladder hook until it grappled onto something solid on the deck. The closest thing I could see was the housing for the mooring rope.

  The water buffeted against me as we gathered speed and I had to fight to keep my pole arm steady. At least I didn't have to worry about noise. My efforts were entirely focused on getting that hook to engage. There was no point worrying about the magnet; if it gave way, it gave way. Why worry about what you can't change?

  I just hoped that anyone on the bridge was looking straight ahead and not pissing around on the wings. Fuck it, I'd soon find out. The captain and his mate should be up there behind the steering wheel. The other four would be fucking around with the engines and whatever other stuff you needed to keep the ship afloat and pointing in the right direction. I didn't know much about life on the ocean wave, but I couldn't think why any of them would be hanging around at the stern, staring idly at the wake. That was the sort of thing I would have done.

  I had so much seawater in my mouth I was starting to gag. My eyes stung. I felt like I was in one of those tidal exercise pools and someone had turned the dial to max. I bounced up across the surface one second and got dragged down by the sheer weight of water the next. I had to get some better leverage. With my left hand hooked into the net, I pushed against the hull with my feet and tried to brace myself.

  The harbour lights faded into the distance. Isolated settlements glowed weakly along the coast.

  On the sixth or seventh attempt, the hook finally snagged. On what, I didn't know, but it was holding. I gave it a sharp tug, then another. It held.

  I released the karabiner from the magnet, let the net fall and gripped the ladder with both hands. My legs were swept from under me as I flailed in the Bahiti's wake, hoping like fuck that I wasn't going to be sliced into a million little pieces by the churning propeller screws.

  5

  You don't climb caving ladders the same way as you do traditional, rigid ones. You go up them side-on, using your heels, not the balls of your feet. That way you don't get tangled and fuck up.

  I moved one hand up a rung and the corresponding foot. Then another. And another. Then I was out of the water. The ladder flapped around in the wake as I bounced around at a forty-five degree angle.

  I kept on going, hand over hand, foot over foot. The only lights I could see now were on the ship itself. If the ladder came unstuck or I fell, it was going to be a long swim back.

  A couple of rungs from the top I could see that the ladder's hook, or at least one prong of it, was caught on the rope hole – and that it was too small for me to climb through.

  I scrabbled to get one hand onto the bottom rail, then two, heaving myself up and onto the deck with the world's biggest chin-up. I kicked the ladder and pole away. They dropped into the boiling white foam eight metres below.

  I moved straight into the shadows at the rear of the bridge tower, peeled off the wetsuit and binned it over the side as well. My head and hands were still ice cold, but my body was drenched with sweat.

  The priority now was to get below. There were hatches all over the place. They were all tied down, but that didn't matter; I knew exactly where I was going and how to get there. As you looked towards the bow, there was a door to the right of the bridge tower. I edged my way to the corner and lay flat on the deck. I eased my head round at ground level.

  The door was open, just as Lynn had said it would be. Weak yellow light spilled from inside. I drew level and checked down the narrow corridor. Layers of badly painted cream gloss adorned the walls, and stairs led off to the right and left. The lino-covered floor was impregnated with grit to prevent slipping.

  I could hear voices on the bridge above me, muttering in Arabic-accented English, then Duff – it had to be him, because he was giving orders – replying. The engines thundered below. I couldn't see any sign of movement. I crossed the threshold and headed straight downstairs.

  The engine noise got louder with each step I took. The louder the better, as far as I was concerned. An open door to my left reminded me of watching Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea as a kid: the Seaview's had been exactly the same.

  I heard voices from the engine room but I didn't check them out – the door I wanted was opposite and just short of it.

  The cargo hold was lit, but it felt like a dungeon. Crates and alloy boxes were stacked in two sections to within a few feet of the ceiling, leaving an alleyway between them just wide enough for a man to squeeze through, and another around the sides. The whole lot was lashed down with nylon nets and ropes.

  The place stank of oily wood and grease. The floor seemed to be covered with wheat – its normal payload, perhaps – but these crates and boxes weren't going to be full of Shreddies, that was for sure. I stepped over the dark brown detonator cord that ran left and right of me then around the side of the cargo.

  I had to climb on top of the stack before I found a spot where the net was slack and there was a space just big enough to move around in.

  I unclipped the green metal retainers on the top wooden crate, and hauled up the netting so I could get the lid open. I didn't really need to check. I had spent years humping boxes exactly like these all over the world when I was in the infantry. The contents were as the stencilling described: it was a general-purpose machinegun in its transit chest. The butt and barrel had been removed and placed in receptacles cut into the interior framework. Even the GPMG's cleaning wallet, a green nylon bag, was exactly where it should have been. The whole lot was factory fresh.

  The 150 tonnes of weapons were bound for the Provisional IRA. I wasn't going to unload each box to make sure Lynn was right, but he'd told me there were a thousand AKs; a million rounds of ammunition; loads of GPMGs; 450 hand grenades; rocket-propelled grenade launchers and grenades; SAM ground-to-air launchers and missiles, each one capable of downing a British army helicopter; anti-tank launchers, and thousands of electric dets and fuses. There were even a couple of crates of flamethrowers, apparently, and to top it all off, two tonnes of Semtex explosive, lovingly fashioned in the old Czechoslovakia.

  Mansour was organizing the shipment. It was en route to the west coast of Ireland, and from there to the streets of Derry, Belfast and the UK mainland. It seemed bizarre to me that the task wasn't to sink the thing. That, it seemed, was Two Cells' job if the shipment was compromised.

  He wouldn't fuck about. According to Lynn, he was the best of the best when it came to making IEDs, and prepared to die for the cause. He'd even offered himself up as a suicide bomber – to wrap himself around Maggie and then press the detonator button – but the boyos thought he was too good to waste.

  The dim glow of a torch appeared at the far end of the aisle, heading my way. I flattened myself against the stack.

  The beam slewed across the gap between the crates and brightened with every footstep. Its owner moved closer to where I was hidden. As he came into the light from the corridor, he switched off the torch. He passed below me.

  I moved my head fractionally and saw Two Cells walking towards the entrance I'd just come through. His hair hung lank and greasy down the back of his neck.

  He closed the door behind him.

  I jumped down and headed over to see what he'd been up to.

  Not that I couldn't already guess.

  6

  He'd glued the timer power unit directly to the bare steel to the right of the bow. I could still smell the Evostik.

  The TPU consisted of a blue wooden box about twenty centimetres square and four deep. The top was screwed down and the detonator leads e
merged from a small hole in its side. The det itself, an aluminium cylinder the size of half a cigarette packed with HE, was gaffer-taped to a length of brown det cord. Essentially washing line with a high-explosive filling, it snaked away down the aisle.