Brute Force ns-11 Read online

  The voice that answered a few seconds later was female and Irish. 'That you, Nick?'

  'Yup. Failed Boiler Maintenance Man of the Year.'

  It wasn't just the housing jackpot Platinum Bollocks had hit. Siobhan looked stunning even in jeans, trainers and a black sweatshirt.

  She stepped aside. 'Come on in.'

  I crossed the threshold and started wiping my shoes on a big square of matting until I noticed Tallulah's and Ruby's shoes lined up next to a pair of men's trainers. The highly polished black and white chequered tiles looked clean enough to do surgery on. This was a no-shoes zone.

  'Dom explained about the boiler. I'm so sorry. It's never happened before.'

  'He should try paying the bill. It works for me.'

  She was already walking down the chandeliered hall. 'Tea or coffee?'

  'Coffee – strong. I might be back on the road.'

  'Stay here, there's—'

  'Hot water?' I laughed a bit too long.

  Subject dropped. Mission accomplished.

  We passed the open door to a reception room and finally arrived in the kitchen.

  It was a large knock-through that took up the whole of the rear of the building. I was in a world of stainless steel and glass, limed oak and spotlights. Four gas rings seemed to float in a polished granite island in the middle of the room.

  Dom and Tallulah were on stools. Ruby was tucking into a bowl of cereal at the table in the corner.

  I gave an exaggerated gesture of surrender. 'Well, I tried. No chance of a plumber this side of New Year. But I've got a mate coming over from London. I'll meet him off the ferry and take him up there. Soon as it's fixed, I'll give you a call.'

  Dom looked at me as if I'd barked at the moon.

  Ruby looked up from her cornflakes. 'I like it here.'

  'You mean the TV's bigger?'

  She grinned, caught out. 'Can we stay, Tally?'

  Siobhan jumped in. 'Yes, why don't you stay a bit longer? We three girls could have a good catch-up.'

  Dom got off his stool. 'OK, Nick – let's you and me go do some boiler talk.'

  I followed him through double doors that had been punched through the dividing wall. He offered me a blue velvet two-seater one side of the low coffee table and sat down opposite. I had a good view of the car. Good; that meant they had a good view of me.

  The fireplace to my left was tiled. The black grate was far too shiny ever to have been used. The mantelpiece was covered with all the usual pictures of two people's lives together, but no framed prints of Dom being heroic with a microphone. There was, however, a gold award that looked like the Flying Lady on a Rolls Royce. Veiled Threats, the documentary that had made Pete and Dom famous, had scooped the Emmys a couple of years back.

  'OK, Nick, let's cut to the chase. This isn't about the boiler, is it?'

  'Something's come up. I've got to go back to London and I didn't know how to tell them.'

  'Work?'

  'Sort of. I don't know how long I'll be. Just a couple of days, with any luck. Do you mind letting them stay, keeping an eye on them?'

  'They're not in any danger, are they?'

  'Why do you ask?'

  'You keep glancing out of the window. Not expecting Leptis to make an appearance, are you?'

  I looked up sharply.

  'The message to the station I phoned you about – he said to tell you he knew what was happening at the house, and he knows what it's all about. He has the answers. He said to go and see him soon as you can. He said you'd understand.'

  'And he said his name was Leptis? No mistake about that?'

  He shook his head. 'You sure this shouldn't be a police matter?'

  28

  I said goodbye to Tallulah in the front room, in full view of the street. I waved my arms about, demonstrating some of the shots I'd use to beat Ruby at Wii tennis next time I saw her. She thought I was mad. Seconds later I stormed out of the house, slammed the car door and drove off much too fast.

  I headed for the ferry terminal and bought a one-way ticket. To anyone watching, this was one man's Christmas that hadn't gone well.

  I checked my rear-view all the way to the dock. I took note of the cars behind, and even stopped for a brew on the five-mile route between Ballsbridge and Dun Laoghaire. I checked who drove in with me, and if they followed me back onto the road. I checked anyone who got out of their cars or even just looked at me.

  I saw nothing suspicious, and that scared me as much as it would have done if I had. Apart from the dud battery, these guys were good. They would come at me again; the only questions were where and when. For all I knew, they might brass it out on the boat and come and check the device was still where they'd placed it, and try and sort out whatever had stopped it from detonating.

  29

  I drove the Merc up the ramp, to where one of the crew directed me behind a van and next to a small truck. I rearranged stuff busily in the glove compartment and watched the wing mirror to see who came in behind me.

  Maybe this ferry was their next killing ground. A risky place for a murder, but my body wouldn't be found until the ferry docked in Holyhead and my car failed to move. By the time one of the crew came to see why and found me slumped over the steering wheel with two extra holes in my head, a biker, the driver of a car near the off ramp or even a foot passenger could be well on their way.

  An SUV pulled up carrying a family of four. Mum told the kids to hurry up or they wouldn't get good seats upstairs. Dad told them there was no rush, they had reservations. Mum told them to hurry up anyway.

  I climbed out of the Merc and stretched. I scanned the car deck like I was looking for a friend. I couldn't see any obvious threat; no vanload of heavies in bomber jackets, no biker keeping his helmet on.

  People squeezed between vehicles as they made their way towards the stairs either side. I got back in the Merc, as if I was waiting for the rush to die down. I tidied a couple of duvets on the passenger seat next to me, and a couple of bottles of wine I'd rescued from the kitchen table as I left the cottage.

  The last car was on board and the ramp had gone up. The final trickle of passengers had made their way to the stairs. The crew would soon be doing a check to make sure no one had stayed behind.

  I gathered the duvets and bottles and got out. I put the bottles on the deck then went and lifted the tailgate. I made as if to throw the duvets in, but bent down and pushed them under the chassis instead. I closed the tailgate again and blipped the key fob. I went back round to the driver's door, and looked around. No crew watching. I bent to pick up the bottles and rolled under the truck alongside me.

  I hadn't bought my ticket with cash or practised any sort of tradecraft. I continued to act as if I didn't know the device had been planted. I kept everything overt, to try and bring whoever was responsible back to the car.

  Who the fuck was it? Only three people in the world knew what 'Leptis' meant: Colonel Lynn, the Libyan spook who'd coined it and me. Unless . . . shit . . . Lynn may have mentioned it in a report, which meant it was sitting in a file. Anyone at the Firm with the appropriate level of clearance would have had access to it.

  Whoever they were, I really wanted them to find me now. I wanted to be picked up. I wanted some fucker to come and have another go.

  I reached under the Merc and grabbed the duvets. I wriggled to get one of them under me, and pulled the other over the top. The steel plates of the deck were freezing cold, and the air temperature wasn't much better. I kept the wine bottles within reach. They were the only weapons I had.

  30

  When the ship cast off and began to move with the swell, I felt for a moment like I was back in the cargo hold of the Bahiti. I just hoped this wasn't fate coming full circle and propelling me towards a hot date with a length of det cord.

  1987 had been a good year for Lynn and me, but a terrible one for PIRA. In February, Sinn Fein had fielded twenty-seven candidates in the Irish general election but they'd only managed to scrape abou
t a thousand votes each. It showed how out of touch PIRA were. Few people in the south gave a toss about reunification with Northern Ireland; they were far more concerned with other issues like unemployment and the crippling level of taxation. Ordinary people really did believe that London and Dublin could work together to bring about a long-term solution to the troubles.

  PIRA and Sinn Fein were in danger of being marginalized, and must have decided they needed a morale booster. Their knee-jerk reaction was the murder, on Saturday 25 April, of Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, one of the province's most senior judges. I saw the celebrations first-hand in PIRA's illegal drinking dens that weekend. I even had a few pints myself as I hung around. The players loved what had happened. Not only had they got rid of one of their worst enemies, but recriminations were flying left, right and centre between London and Dublin. The Anglo-Irish accord, which had done so much to undermine PIRA's power base, was now in question itself.

  Barely had the hangovers receded when, two weeks later, PIRA suffered its biggest loss in a single action since 1921. On 8 May, at Loughgall in County Armagh, the Regiment ambushed and killed eight of PIRA's East Tyrone Brigade while they were attempting to bomb a police station. I was there, and I knew that we'd been acting on a tip-off from an undisclosed but highly placed source.

  PIRA was reeling. From a force of 1,000 hardcore players in 1980, its strength had already been cut to fewer than 250, of which only fifty or so were members of active service units. Our successes had cut this down to forty, which meant that the operation at Loughgall wiped out one-fifth of PIRA's hardliners at a stroke. If this carried on, the remaining members of PIRA would soon be able to share the same taxi. A couple more tip-offs and they might be history.

  Loughgall was followed by a disastrous showing by Sinn Fein in the British General Election. The Catholic vote was switching to the moderate SDLP. Then, in October, during Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin, Spanish forces seized a small freighter called the Bahiti in the Med, and Colonel Gaddafi's early Christmas present to PIRA.

  The humiliation was complete. No wonder 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 11 November, Remembrance Day, PIRA planted a 30lb bomb with a timer device at the town memorial in Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. I arrived on the scene soon afterwards and saw the carnage with my own eyes. Eleven civilians lay dead in the mountain of rubble and twisted steel, 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 community care, the Tass news agency denounced what it called 'barbaric murders'. Even Gaddafi disowned them. But worst of all for PIRA, even the Irish-Americans appeared to have had enough.

  They'd fucked up big-time. They'd thought the bombing would be hailed as a victory in their struggle against an occupying power, but all it had done was show them up for what they really were. It might be one thing to kill 'legitimate' targets like judges, policemen and members of the security forces – but murdering innocent civilians while they were honouring their dead at a Remembrance Day service?

  PIRA's very existence was at stake, leaving the field wide open for the UDA and other Protestant paramilitaries to have the drugs rackets to themselves. There were no sectarian divides when it came to money – just normal competition and greed. PIRA and the UDA used to get together on a regular basis to carve up the drug, prostitution and extortion rackets, even to discuss demarcation lines for different taxi firms and sites for gaming machines. They had the infrastructure, the knowledge and the weapons to be major players in the world of crime. With cooperation from other terror organizations throughout the world, the possibilities were endless.

  And that was why people like Richard Isham had taken a brisk pace forward and announced they were turning from the gun to the ballot box.

  31

  The boat was docking and I still had no definitive answers. No one had come for me or even checked the car. I'd been hoping they would; I'd been hoping I could jump someone and beat a few answers out of them.

  As things stood, the only thing I knew more or less for certain was that it could be any one of three groups of people who were after me: PIRA, the Firm or the Mujahideen. They were the only people, as far as I knew, who used Chinese pigtails in their IEDs. The Muj could be ticked off the list straightaway. Even in mountainous Donegal, a carload of Bin Laden lookalikes would be just a little bit conspicuous.

  The Firm have phenomenal electronic firepower at their beck and call. Using the Echelon system, GCHQ could capture radio and satellite communications, mobile phone calls, emails and other data streams nearly anywhere in the world. Was that how they'd tracked me to the house, by pinging my mobile phone? If so, it was lucky I spoke to Dom on the landline or they'd know where I was right now.

  Would they have taken innocent lives just to get to me? Yes. They'd killed Pete to try and get to Dom. They wouldn't care; it would just look like an attempt by RIRA – the Real IRA, resurgent elements of PIRA hardliners who refused to buy into the peace process – to kill an ex-member of the SAS and put themselves on the map.

  I had no contacts, let alone friends, on the inside at Vauxhall Cross. No official points of contact, no mates I could turn to. Even my old contacts in the RUC (now PSNI) or Irish Special Branch couldn't help me if the Firm was involved. The Firm trumped every other card in the pack.

  This message from Leptis . . . Maybe it wasn't Lynn trying to help or 'having the answers'. Maybe he'd simply been roped in to channel me to his home, the next killing ground?

  I would have to assume the worst – that Lynn was being coerced – and act accordingly. But first, I would have to find him.

  It was ten years since I'd last seen him. An ex-spook like him would hardly be in the phone directory or have a Facebook page, and I didn't have him on speed dial.

  PART THREE

  32

  I drove off the ferry and into Holyhead. I parked up near the first internet café I could find and paid for an hour.

  If they were following me they'd soon find out where I was heading. I checked the windows and there was still nothing obvious to tell me anyone out there walking the streets, sitting in a parked car or just mincing about window-shopping had a trigger on me. Maybe they didn't have to now: they'd just lift me at Lynn's place, once I'd found out where it was.

  My first port of call was obvious: I tried a site that searched the telephone directory. I didn't know Lynn's first name, but had to insert at least an initial. It was going to be a laborious process. I started with A Lynn and Norfolk as the location, and got over a hundred results straightaway – just for the site's free directory enquiries listings. There were many more listings on the electoral roll and birth, marriage and death records, but you had to pay to view them. This wasn't going to work. I could plough through a couple of thousand free listings, and still not have a result. He could be ex-directory.

  The only clue I had to a more specific location came from our twenty-year-old conversation at the Tripoli docks, and what he had told me in his office ten years ago, when he was forced into early retirement after a deniable job he'd sent me to do in America had gone very wrong, and his head had rolled.

  After the Tripoli job, Colonel Lynn came back to the UK and acted as liaison between the MoD and SIS. He'd sent me to Washington to deal with a renegade operator, and I had. But others, mostly Americans, got caught in the crossfire, and since this all happened inside the White House, I wasn't exactly flavour of the month. Since then he'd treated me as if he was a bank manager and I was asking for a bigger overdraft, trying hard to be nice but never quite managing to conceal his disdain. I didn't mind. I'd been used to that kind of shit since I was a kid. As long as he didn't expect me to look up to him with reverence.

  I still remembered asking to be put
on the fulltime payroll, permanent cadre as a K, a deniable operator. His words stung in my memory.

  'After your total lack of judgement, do you really think that you would ever be considered for permanent cadre?' His face flushed. It was the first time I'd ever seen him angry. 'Think yourself lucky you are still on retainer. Do you really think that you would be considered for work after you –' his voice got louder and his right index finger stabbed the air more vigorously with every point – 'one, disobey my direct order to kill that damned woman. Two, actually believe her preposterous story and assist her assassination attempt in the White House. God, man, your judgement was no better than a love-struck schoolboy's. Do you really think a woman like that would be interested in you?'

  He couldn't contain himself. It was as if I'd touched a raw nerve.