Читать книгу Death on Gibraltar - Shaun Clarke, Shaun Clarke - Страница 7

After removing his blood-smeared white smock and washing the wet blood from his hands in the sink behind the butcher’s shop where he worked, Daniel McCann put on his jacket, checked the money in his wallet, then locked up and stepped into the darkening light of the late afternoon. The mean streets of Republican Belfast had not yet surrendered to night, but they looked dark and grim with their pavements wet with rain, the bricked-up windows and doorways in empty houses, and the usual police checkpoints and security fences.

Though only thirty, ‘Mad Dan’ looked much older, his face prematurely lined and chiselled into hard, unyielding features by his murderous history and ceaseless conflict with the hated British. In the hot, angry summer of 1969, when he was twelve, Catholic homes in his area had been burnt to the ground by Loyalist neighbours before the ‘Brits’ were called in to stop them, inaugurating a new era of bloody warfare between the Catholics, the Protestants and the British Army. As a consequence, Mad Dan had become a dedicated IRA veteran, going all the way with his blood-chilling enthusiasm for extortion, kneecapping and other forms of torture and, of course, assassination – not only of Brits and Irish Prods, but also of his own kind when they stood in his way, betrayed the cause, or otherwise displeased him.

Nevertheless, Mad Dan had led a charmed life. In a long career as an assassin, he had chalked up only one serious conviction – for possessing a detonator – which led to two years in the Maze. By the time he got out, having been even more thoroughly educated by his fellow-Irishmen in the prison, he was all set to become a fanatical IRA activitst with no concept of compromise.

But Mad Dan didn’t just torture, maim and kill for the IRA cause; he did it because he had a lust for violence and a taste for blood. He was a mad dog.

At the very least, the RUC and British Army had Mad Dan tabbed as an enthusiastic exponent of shoot-to-kill and repeatedly hauled him out of his bed in the middle of the night to attend the detention centre at Castlereagh for an identity parade or interrogation. Yet even when they beat the hell out of him, Mad Dan spat in their faces.

He liked to walk. It was the best way to get round the city and the way least likely to attract the attention of the RUC or British Army. Now, turning into Grosvenor Road, he passed a police station and regular Army checkpoint, surrounded by high, sandbagged walls and manned by heavily armed soldiers, all wearing DPM clothing, helmets with chin straps, and standard-issue boots. Apart from the private manning the 7.62mm L4 light machine-gun, the soldiers were carrying M16 rifles and had stun and smoke grenades on their webbing. The sight of them always made Mad Dan’s blood boil.

That part of Belfast looked like London after the Blitz: rows of terraced houses with their doors and windows bricked up and gardens piled high with rubble. The pavements outside the pubs and certain shops were barricaded with large concrete blocks and sandbags. The windows were caged with heavy-duty wire netting as protection against car bombs and petrol bombers.

Farther along, a soldier with an SA80 assault rifle was covering a sapper while the latter carefully checked the contents of a rubbish bin. Mad Dan was one of those who often fired rocket-propelled grenades from Russian-manufactured RPG7 short-range anti-tank weapons, mainly against police stations, army barracks and armoured personnel carriers or Saracen armoured cars. He was also one of those who had, from a safe distance, command-detonated dustbins filled with explosives. It was for these that the sapper was examining all the rubbish bins near the police station and checkpoint. Usually, when explosives were placed in dustbins, it was done during the night, which is why the sappers had to check every morning. Seeing this particular soldier at work gave Mad Dan a great deal of satisfaction.

Farther down the road, well away from the Army checkpoint, he popped in and out of a few shops and betting shops to collect the protection money required to finance his own Provisional IRA unit. He collected the money in cash, which he stuffed carelessly into his pockets. In the last port of call, a bookie’s, he took the protection money from the owner, then placed a few bets and joked about coming back to collect his winnings. The owner, though despising him, was frightened of him and forced a painful smile.

After crossing the road, Mad Dan stopped just short of an RUC station which was guarded by officers wearing flak-jackets and carrying the ubiquitous 5.56mm Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. There he turned left and circled back through the grimy streets until he was heading up the Falls Road and making friendlier calls to his IRA mates in the pubs of Springfield, Ballymurphy and Turf Lodge, where everyone looked poor and suspicious. Most noticeable were the gangs of teenagers known as ‘dickers’, who stood menacingly at street corners, keeping their eyes out for newcomers or anything else they felt was threatening, particularly British Army patrols.

Invariably, with the gangs there were young people on crutches or with arms in slings, beaming with pride because they’d been knee-capped as punishment for some infraction, real or imagined, and were therefore treated as ‘hard men’ by their mates.

Being a kneecapping specialist, Mad Dan knew most of the dickers and kids by name. He was particularly proud of his kneecapping abilities, but, like his fellow Provisional IRA members, used various methods of punishment, according to the nature of the offence.

It was a harsh truth of Republican Belfast that you could tell the gravity of a man’s offence by how he’d been punished. If he had a wound either in the fleshy part of the thigh or in the ankle, from a small .22 pistol, which doesn’t shatter bone, then he was only guilty of a minor offence. For something more serious he would be shot in the back of the knee with a high-velocity rifle or pistol, which meant the artery was severed and the kneecap blown right off. Mad Dan’s favourite, however, was the ‘six-pack’, the fate of particularly serious offenders. The victim received a bullet in each elbow, knee and ankle, which put him on crutches for a long time.

While the six-pack was reserved for ‘touts’, or informers, and other traitors, the less damaging, certainly less agonizing punishments were administered to car thieves, burglars, sex offenders, or anyone too openly critical of the IRA, even though they may have actually done nothing.

As one of the leading practitioners of such punishments, Mad Dan struck so much terror into his victims that when they received a visit from one of his minions, telling them that they had to report for punishment, they nearly always went of their own accord to the place selected for the kneecapping. Knowing what was going to happen to them, many tried to anaesthetize themselves beforehand by getting drunk or sedating themselves with Valium, but Mad Dan always waited for the effects to wear off before inflicting the punishment. He liked to hear them screaming.

‘Sure, yer squealin’ like a stuck pig,’ he would say after the punishment had been dispensed. ‘Stop shamin’ your mother, bejasus, and act like a man!’

After a couple of pints with some IRA friends in a Republican pub in Andersonstown, Mad Dan caught a taxi to the Falls Road, the Provos’ heartland and one of the deadliest killing grounds in Northern Ireland. The streets of the ‘war zone’, as British soldiers called it, were clogged with armoured Land Rovers and forbidding military fortresses looming against the sky. British Army barricades, topped with barbed wire and protected by machine-gun crews atop Saracen armoured cars, were blocking off the entrance to many streets, with the foot soldiers well armed and looking like Martians in their DPM uniforms, boots, webbing, camouflaged helmets and chin-protectors. The black taxis were packed with passengers too frightened to use public transport or walk. Grey-painted RUC mobiles and Saracens were passing constantly. From both kinds of vehicle, police officers were scanning the upper windows and roofs on either side of the road, looking for possible sniper positions. At the barricades, soldiers were checking everyone entering and, in many instances, taking them aside to roughly search them. As Mad Dan noted with his experienced gaze, there were British Army static observation posts with powerful cameras on the roofs of the higher buildings, recording every movement in these streets. There were also, as he knew, listening devices in the ceilings of suspected IRA buildings, as well as bugs on selected phone lines.

Small wonder that caught between the Brits and the IRA, ever vigilant in their own way, the Catholics in these streets had little privacy and were inclined to be paranoid.

Turning into a side-street off the Falls Road, Mad Dan made his way to a dismal block of flats by a patch of waste ground filled with rubbish, where mangy dogs and scruffy, dirt-smeared children were playing noisily in the gathering darkness. In fact, the block of flats looked like a prison, and all the more so because up on the high roof was a British Army OP, its powerful telescope scanning the many people who loitered along the balconies or on the ground below. One soldier was manning a 7.62mm GPMG; the others were holding M16 rifles with the barrels resting lightly on the sandbagged wall.

Grinning as he looked up at the overt OP, Mad Dan placed the thumb of his right hand on his nose, then flipped his hand left and right in ironic, insulting salute. Then he entered the pub. It was smoky, noisy and convivial inside. Seeing Patrick Tyrone sitting at one of the tables with an almost empty glass of Guinness in front of him, Mad Dan asked with a gesture if he wanted another. When Tyrone nodded, Mad Dan ordered and paid for two pints, then carried them over to Tyrone’s table. Sitting down, he slid one over to Tyrone, had a long drink from his own, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Ach, sure that’s good!’ he said.

When Tyrone, another hard man, had responded with a thin, humourless smile, Mad Dan nodded towards the front door and said: ‘I see the Brits have some OPs on the roof. Do they do any damage?’

‘Aye. They’re equipped with computers linked to vehicle-registration and suspect-information centres, as well as to surveillance cameras. Also, the shites’ high visibility reminds us of their presence and so places a quare few constraints on us. At the same time, the OPs allow members of regular Brit units and 14 Intelligence Company to observe suspects and see who their associates are. This in turn allows the shites collecting intelligence at Lisburn and Brit HQ to investigate links between meetings of individuals and our subsequent group activities. So, aye, those bastard OPs can do us lots of damage.’

‘Sure, that’s a hell of a mouthful, Pat.’

‘Sure, it’s also the truth.’

‘Do those OPs have any back up?’ Mad Dan asked.

‘Ackaye’. Each of ’em’s backed up with another consisting of two to four soldiers and located near enough to offer immediate firearms support. If that weren’t enough, those two OPs are backed up by a QRF…’

‘Sure, what’s that if you’d be writin’ home?’

‘A Quick Reaction Force of soldiers or police, sometimes both, located at the nearest convenient SF base. And that QRF will respond immediately to a radio call for help from the OPs. So, no, they’re not alone, Dan. Those Brit bastards up there have a lot of support.’

Mad Dan nodded, indicating he understood, but really he wasn’t all that interested. He was there to receive specific instructions for the forthcoming evening. It was what he now lived for.

‘So what is it?’ he asked.

‘A double hit,’ Tyrone informed him. ‘A bit of weedin’ in the garden. Two bastards that have to be put down to put them out of their misery.’

‘A decent thought,’ Mad Dan said. ‘Now who would they be, then?’

Tyrone had another sip of his Guinness, then took a deep breath. ‘Detective Sergeants Michael Malone and Ernest Carson.’

‘Two bastards, right enough,’ Mad Dan said. ‘Sure, that’s a quare good choice. Tonight, is it?’

‘Aye. They’ll be in the Liverpool Bar for a meetin’ from eight o’clock on. Just walk in there and do as you see fit. We’ve no brief other than that. Just make sure they stop breathin’.’

‘Any security?’

‘None. The dumb shites think they’re in neutral territory, so they’re there for nothin’ else but a quare ol’ time. Let the bastards die happy.’

‘Weapon?’

‘I’ll give it to you outside. A 9mm Browning, removed from an SAS bastard killed back in ’76. Appropriate, right?’

‘Ackaye, real appropriate. Let’s go get it an’ then I’ll be off.’

‘Sure, I knew you’d say that.’

After finishing their drinks in a leisurely manner, the two men left the bar. Glancing up at the OPs and fully aware that the pub was under surveillance, Tyrone led Mad Dan along the street and up the concrete steps of the grim block of flats. He stopped on the gloomy landing, where the steps turned back in the other direction to lead up to the first balcony. There, out of sight of the spying Brits, he removed the Browning and handed it to Mad Dan, along with a fourteen-round magazine.

‘That’s the only ammunition you’re gettin’,’ he said, ‘because you’ve only got time for one round before hightailing it out of there. That also means you’ve no time for mistakes, so make sure you get them fucks.’

‘Sure, that’s no problem at all, Pat. I’ll riddle the bastards and be out of there before they hit the floorboards.’

‘Aye, make sure you do that.’ Tyrone glanced up and down the stairs, checking that no one was coming. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I’m goin’ home for a bite. Off you go. Best of luck. I’ll see you back in the bar in forty minutes.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Mad Dan said.

As Tyrone turned away to go up the steps to his mean flat on the first floor, Mad Dan loaded the magazine into the Browning, then tucked the weapon carefully down the back of his trousers, between the belt and his shirt, hidden under the jacket but where he could reach round and pull it out quickly. He walked back down the stairs and out into the street, in full view of the OPs up above. Bold as brass, he walked alongside the waste ground as the street lights came on to illuminate the dark evening. Emerging into the busy Falls Road, he turned right and walked down the crowded pavement until he reached the nearest parked car. When he bent down to talk to the driver, he was recognized instantly.

‘Sure, how did it go, Dan?’

‘You know Tyrone. Eyes like cold fried eggs and yammerin’ on about the Brits, but he gave me the go-ahead and the weapon.’ Mad Dan checked his watch. It was five past eight. ‘They’ll be in the Liverpool Bar and they should be there now. So, come on, let’s get goin’, lad.’

When Mad Dan had slipped into the seat beside the driver, the latter said: ‘Sure, would that be the Liverpool Bar on Donegall Quay?’

‘Aye, that’s the one. Drop me off there, keep the engine tickin’ over, and get ready to hightail it out of there when I come runnin’ out. Then don’t stop for anything.’

‘I’ll be out of there like a bat out of hell. Sure, you’ve no need to worry, Dan.’

‘Just make sure of that, boyo.’

As the car moved off, heading along the Falls Road in the direction of Divis Street, Mad Dan felt perfectly relaxed and passed the time by gazing out of the window at the hated RUC constables and British Army soldiers manning the barricaded police stations and checkpoints. He had no need to feel concerned about the car being identified because it had been hijacked at gunpoint on a road just outside the city, and the driver warned not to report the theft until the following day. The stolen car would be abandoned shortly after the attack and, when found unattended, it would be blown up by the SF as a potential car bomb. The unfortunate owner, if outraged, at least could count himself lucky that he still had his life. To lose your car in this manner was par for the course in Northern Ireland.

It took no time at all for the driver to make his way from Divis Street down past the Clock Tower, along Queen’s Square and into Donegall Quay, which ran alongside the bleak docks of the harbour, where idle cranes loomed over the water, their hooks, swinging slightly in the wind blowing in from the sea. On one side the harbour walls rose out of the filthy black water, stained a dirty brown by years of salt water and the elements; on the other were ugly warehouses and Victorian buildings. Tucked between some of the latter was the Liverpool Bar, so called because the Belfast-Liverpool ferries left from the nearby Irish Sea Ferry Terminal.

The driver stopped the car in a dark alley near the pub, out of sight of the armed RUC constables and British soldiers guarding the docks at the other side of the main road. He switched his headlights off, slipped into neutral, and kept the engine ticking over quietly.

Mad Dan opened the door, clambered out of the car, hurried along the alley and turned left into Donegall Quay. There he slowed down and walked in a more leisurely manner to the front door of the Liverpool Bar, not even looking at the soldiers guarding the terminal across the road. Without hesitation, he opened the door and went inside.

Even as the door was swinging closed behind him, he saw the two well-known policemen, Detective Sergeants Michael Malone and Ernest Carson, having off-duty drinks with some fellow-officers at the bar. Wasting no time, Mad Dan reached behind him, withdrew the Browning from under his jacket, spread his legs and aimed with the two-handed grip in one quick, expert movement.

The first shots were fired before anyone knew what was happening.

Mad Dan fired the whole fourteen rounds in rapid succession, aiming first at Malone, peppering him with 9mm bullets, then swinging the pistol towards Carson, as the first victim was throwing his arms up and slamming back against the bar, knocking over glasses and bottles, which smashed on the floor.

Even before Malone had fallen, Carson was being cut down, jerking epileptically as other bullets smashed the mirrors, bottles and glasses behind the bar. The barman gasped and twisted sideways, wounded by a stray bullet, and collapsed as one of the other policemen also went down, hit by the last bullets of Mad Dan’s short, savage fusillade.

Chairs and tables turned over as the customers dived for cover, men bawling, women screaming, in that enclosed, dim and smoky space. Hearing the click of an empty chamber, Mad Dan shoved the handgun back in his trousers and turned around to march resolutely, though with no overt display of urgency, through the front door, out on to the dark pavement of Donegall Quay.

Swinging shut behind him, the door deadened the sounds of screaming, bawling and hysterical sobbing from inside the bar.

The RUC constables and British soldiers guarding the terminal across the road neither heard nor saw anything unusual as Mad Dan walked at a normal pace back along the pavement and turned into the darkness of the alley a short way along.

By the time the first of the drinkers had burst out through the front door of the bar, bawling across the road for help, Mad Dan, in the hijacked car, had been raced away from the scene, back to the crowded, anonymous streets of Republican Belfast.

‘Out ya get,’ his driver said, screeching to a halt in a dark and desolate Falls Road side-street.

Mad Dan and the driver clambered out of the car at the same time, then ran together out of the street and back into the lamplit, still busy Falls Road, where they parted without a word.

As the driver entered the nearest pub, where he would mingle with his mates, Mad Dan went back up the Falls Road and turned eventually into the side-street that led to the pub facing the desolate flats that had the British Army OPs on the rooftops. Though picked up by the infrared thermal imagers and personal weapons’ night-sights of the men in the OPs, Mad Dan was viewed by the British observers as no more than another Paddy entering the pub for his nightly pint or two. However, once inside he went directly to the same table he had sat at an hour ago, where Tyrone was still seated, staring up with those eyes that did indeed look no more appealing than cold fried eggs.

‘So how did it go?’ Tyrone asked, showing little concern.

‘The garden’s been weeded,’ Mad Dan told him. ‘No problem at all.’

‘Then the drink’s on me,’ Tyrone said. ‘Sit down, Dan. Rest your itchy arse.’

Mad Dan relaxed while Tyrone went to the bar, bought two pints of Guinness and returned to the table. He handed one of the glasses to Mad Dan, raised his own in a slightly mocking toast, then drank. Mad Dan did the same, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Neutralized or semi-neutralized?’ Tyrone asked.

‘As cold as two hooked fish on a marble slab,’ Mad Dan replied.

‘Gone to meet their maker.’

‘Ackaye,’ Mad Dan said.

Tyrone put down his glass, licked his thin lips, then leant over the table to stare very directly at Mad Dan with his cold eyes. ‘Sure, I want you to meet someone,’ he said.

‘Who?’ Mad Dan asked.

‘A kid called Sean Savage.’