Silent kill, p.2
Silent Kill, page 2
part #1 of Extreme Series
‘Let’s just say some of your tribe have a history of being selective with the truth.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Avery. I came to you the minute I heard. Getting hold of int these days ain’t easy. Costello is keeping everyone out of the loop. What with all the arrests lately, he’s acting paranoid. Everything is on a strictly need-to-know basis, like.’
‘What’s in the shipment?’
Chance was fully expecting Kicker to reel off the usual shopping list of Semtex, mortars, decommissioned rifles and Second World War pistols, kit that trickled in from East Germany and the former Soviet satellites. But he didn’t do that. Instead the Nutting Squad lieutenant sucked in a heavy dose of air and said, ‘Stingers.’
Chance felt her blood run cold. Suddenly it seemed freezing in the car.
‘Stinger missiles?’
‘Aye, and plenty of ’em. We’re talking enough to blow a hole in every Brit chopper in the province.’
Chance felt her flesh crawl. The Provos had been trying to get their hands on anti-aircraft weapons for years. They knew that the British relied heavily on Chinook helicopters to resupply several of their bases across Northern Ireland, especially the more remote bases inaccessible by road. Armed with the infrared FIM-92 surface-to-air missile launcher, a single PIRA shooter could down British choppers at the click of a button. Each Chinook represented a critical supply line to the military. Blow them out of the sky and suddenly the situation north of the border would look a lot more hairy.
Another thought burst the bubble Chance was in. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The FBI has clamped down on the traditional smuggling route from Florida. Of course, the Libyans supplied weapons for a while, but they’ve gone quiet recently. And we monitor all the major shipping channels. There’s no way anyone could smuggle in missiles without our knowing about it.’
Kicker flashed his palms at the agent. ‘I’m just telling you the craic, love. Make of it what you will.’ He shifted in his seat. After getting comfortable he continued, ‘I went to the meeting with the other lads, right. Then Costello starts going on about times being tough. What with all the heat on us from the Brits, you lot infiltrating our ranks, and the shipments from Florida and Libya going Pete Tong.’
‘Go on.’
‘Then Costello suddenly lights up like the Fourth of July, and says we’re gonna turn the tables on the Brits. Says there’s a shipment coming in tomorrow, 0800 hours, and we’re to cache the consignment down by the border. One of the boyos asks what’s in the consignment, and Costello comes right out with it and says, Stingers. The guy looked pleased with himself. Like he’d just landed himself a hot date with that slag from Baywatch.’
Chance stared out of the window, and wondered. A new arms smuggling route? Possible, she conceded. The PIRA leaders had been casting their net far and wide in the hunt for new sources of armaments. So far they had met with limited success. Outfits like the PLO and the Colombian FARC were running low on stocks themselves. Certainly those terrorist organizations lacked the means to provide a shipment of Stingers. And no credible nation state would dare flout international sanctions by selling arms to the Provos.
So who’s behind the sale? Chance was thinking. ‘Where’s the shipment coming in?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You just said you were at the meeting. Don’t lie to me, Joe.’
‘I ain’t lying. We know the when and the what. Costello is keeping the where close to his chest. Eight o’clock in the morning, that’s what we were told. We meet Costello at his house. Then a big pile of us Nutting Squad boyos head down to Galway and load the consignment into the back of several trucks. We’re to be given maps with the coordinates of weapons caches. New caches, mind – ones that you don’t know about.’
Chance looked through the windscreen, soaking up the int. She saw a wafer-thin middle-aged man emerging from the Devlin Social Club. He was wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap and a naff green bomber jacket. The cap’s brim shaded his face, so Chance couldn’t make out his features. He stopped outside the door, reached into the jacket pocket and plucked a cigarette from a packet. Cupped his shovel-like hands around the trembling flame. Chance noted that his fingers were stitched with colourful tattoos. The man stood in the shadow of the club, sucking on his tab.
The MI5 agent turned back to Kicker. Looked him dead in the cracks of his eyes. ‘You have to help me out here, Joe. If what you’re saying is true, then the Provisional IRA is about to get its hands on weapons that could derail the peace process for decades. None of us want that, do we?’
‘I guess not.’ Kicker’s voice was soft and thoughtful.
He had a six-month old baby, Chance knew. Name of Mary. PIRA men always turned a little soft when their women started pumping out babies. Chance played on that, gripping Kicker’s hand. The human touch. ‘You need to give me something more. Something I can go back to my bosses with.’ She gently withdrew her hand. ‘If they see you’re not cooperating, Five will withdraw its protection. Word will get around: Joe turned snitch. All those boyos you passed over to us will be very upset. You don’t want little Mary to grow up not knowing her father, now, do you? Of course you don’t. You’re a good man, Joe. Not a monster, like the others.’
Chance could see her words working their magic. In the periphery of her vision she spotted the guy in the Red Sox cap walking away from the Devlin. Hands stuffed in the pockets of his bomber jacket, chin tucked tight into his chest against the lacerating cold. It was dark and she couldn’t make out his face.
Kicker pulled his hand away. Cracked his knuckles and stared at a spot in the footwell. A small man wrestling with a big problem. Belfast all over. ‘This can’t be traced back to me,’ he said eventually. ‘If the RA top brass finds out I’ve dobbed them in, I’m done for.’
‘You have my word.’
A sharp intake of breath, then Kicker said, ‘There’s this guy.’
‘What guy?’ A strange thrill ran through Chance at the mention of this new arms smuggler. She was on the verge of uncovering something so big it would blow away her male colleagues. She had a vision of following Rimington all the way to the top.
Kicker dropped his voice so low it could’ve crawled under the belly of a snake. ‘All I know is, the smuggler goes by the name of Colonel Jim. He’s like the Father Christmas of the arms trade. Costello reckons he’s sitting on enough kit to start World Wars Three, Four and Five and have enough left over for seconds.’
‘Where can we find him?’
But Kicker wasn’t tuned in. He was facing stiffly forward. Chance followed his gaze. Then she noticed something odd. The man in the Red Sox cap had stopped briefly at the corner of Andersonstown Road and Suffolk Road. He was waving at a pair of headlights thirty metres further south on Andersonstown Road. He hunched his shoulders, looked down at the ground, moved on.
A split second later Chance saw a white Ford Transit surge into view. Speeding directly along Andersonstown Road towards the Cavalier, its growl cutting through the glassy silence. It screeched to a halt ten metres from the Cav, blocking the road.
Then the side doors flew open and four figures in balaclavas streamed out.
Gunning straight for the Cav.
Three
2112 hours.
Chance didn’t panic. Not at first.
The road behind the Cav was completely clear. She quickly selected Reverse. Figured she could back up north along Andersonstown Road towards the Falls Road and the Westlink, and the sanctuary of Protestant east Belfast.
The four balaclava-clad men swarmed towards the Cav. Provos, without a doubt, she thought, from their Denison camouflage smocks and shapeless, acid-washed jeans right down to their fingerless leather gloves.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus, they’re coming right for us,’ said Kicker, trembling as he spoke, each word sounding like a gasp.
Chance saw the weapons then. All four PIRA men were tooled up. The nearest two gripped AK-47 assault rifles. Their muckers a couple of steps further back were toting Czech-manufactured CZ 75 semi-automatic pistols. They clearly meant business.
Chance said, ‘They wouldn’t dare open fire. We’re in a densely-populated area—’
‘That’s more Irish than a bottle of Bushmills,’ Kicker said, his voice shaking. ‘The locals are used to getting shot at by the RUC fellas. Everyone who lives here knows the drill. Look around you.’
Chance glanced up. Kicker was correct, she realized. The streets had suddenly emptied. A tremor of panic tickled her chest as she put her foot down hard on the pedal, the Cav’s engine screaming as she reversed and picked up speed. In seconds the speedo showed thirty kilometres per hour, the steering wheel jerking in Chance’s grip, her wrists burning as she fought to keep the car in a straight line. Kicker stared dead ahead. His eyes had widened to poker chips. He had a look on his face like he’d just seen someone rape his mother.
Chance had reversed twenty-five metres when she saw headlights flare up in the rear-view mirror. Her guts squirmed. They were forty metres behind her. Two pairs of them, she realized. Now she could see they belonged to a couple of black cabs, their ‘For Hire’ signs glowing apricot on the roofs.
‘Slow down, for fuck’s sake!’ Kicker shouted.
But Chance just stared numbly as the headlights swelled in the mirror, her foot still on the accelerator. They’re picking up speed, she thought. There’s no escape. Fear sank its teeth into her neck. The taxis were racing towards the Cav.
‘Stop!’ Kicker screamed.
Now Chance snapped out of her stupor and hit the brakes. The Cav wobbled, the rear bumper swerving hard right. The tyres squealed. Then the car stopped in the middle of the road, thirty metres from the Transit, twenty ahead of the taxis. The cabs were still accelerating towards her.
Chance frantically shifted into Drive. The cabs were now just ten metres behind her, their headlights almost whiting out the rear window. Both of them braked at the last moment. And in that same instant Chance yanked the steering wheel hard left and surged forward, steering off the road, towards a grass verge opposite a row of dingy shops. Away from the four gunmen, two now ten metres ahead, the other two just behind, all racing towards the Cav. The speedo was touching fifty now, the engine grinding. Chance still thought she could get away.
Then she spotted the nearest two gunmen drawing their AK-47s level with their shoulders. She heard a roar as the two weapons lit up, flames licking out of their snouts. The gunmen discharged their rounds in simultaneous three-round bursts. The road flashed white, then smoke snorted across Chance’s line of vision. For a breathless second she allowed herself to think they had missed. Then the Cav slumped on its axis as a torrent of hot lead punctured both front tyres. A loud hissing filled the air, soon replaced by the whump-whump of rubber bouncing on tarmac. The car jolted to a halt. Chance’s seatbelt pulled tight across her chest, squeezing her lungs. A hot pressure exploded inside her skull. Her neck muscles tensed painfully. Beside her Kicker was thrown forward, his head banging against the dash before snapping back.
The gunmen each fired a second time. Six bullets punched holes in the radiator grille and glanced off the bonnet. Smoke filtered out of the grille. The car’s alarm shrieked the same insane note, over and over. A single round nicked the windscreen, fracturing the glass like a pickaxe hitting a block of ice. Chance and Kicker ducked under the dash as a third set of three-round bursts fizzed out of the assault rifles. Six more bullets ripped into the car. Chance closed her eyes. She was sure that she would die.
But the shooting cut out. Just like that. The alarm too. The air was filled instead with the hiss of the radiator, the erratic tapping of the engine. Chance put her fingers to her temples. It felt like someone had drilled holes in the sides of her skull.
She heard shattered glass crunching underfoot. Voices shouting. Coming from her three o’clock. Drawing near to her. Beside her Kicker pawed groggily at the mashed-up bridge of his nose.
Chance cleared her throat. ‘Joe,’ she said. ‘Wake up. We have to leave. Now!’
‘Gah—’
‘Get those cunts out!’ a voice spat from outside the car in a bog-Irish accent.
Her door was flung open before Chance could react. A hand thrust into the car and clamped around her right wrist. Meanwhile the second gunman had opened Joe’s door, grabbed his neck and was shaking his head from side to side like he was trying to shake a spider out of his hair.
‘Oh sweet Jesus no!’ Joe moaned in a nasal tone. ‘I ain’t dying. Not here!’
He wrenched himself free and threw himself out of the car. The gunman grabbed at him but Kicker ducked out of the way and ran screaming towards the grass verge. Chance moved to help him, but the hand gripping her wrist yanked her out of the Cav with such violence that she thought her arm would be ripped from its socket. Helpless, she watched Kicker try to escape. He was staggering as if the left side of his body had been anaesthetized. He was never going to make it. She knew that much. He managed to put four or five metres between himself and the car before the other two gunmen rushed at him from one side. One of them jabbed him in the lower back with the stock of his AK. His mucker booted him to the ground. A short, sharp cry of agony pierced the air. Then there was a flurry of grunts as the tow of them attacked Kicker, the sound of hard wood cracking against bone as both now swung their rifle stocks at him like lumberjacks chopping wood. Kicker raised his hands in a desperate effort to shield his head from the flurry of blows.
Chance turned to face the gunman who had hauled her out of the car.
‘You bastard!’ she screamed, trying to shake off his fearsome grip.
No response. Then guy was built like a testicle on a pair of stilts, his zipped-up jacket almost bursting open from the thick muscle packed into his torso. His shoulders resembled a couple of rugby balls stuffed into a sack. But his legs were thin and wildly out of proportion to his upper body, and they were bent at the knees, as if straining under the sheer weight they were supporting. His eyes glowered. They were dull and black as a pair of eight balls, and set deep in their sockets.
Stilts gripped a CZ 75 semi-automatic in his right hand. His index finger teased the trigger. Chance found her eyes drawn to the pistol. She stopped struggling to break free when the muzzle was six inches from her face. Strange, being so close to death. Stilts made that feeling realer still, jamming the CZ 75 against her cheek. She shivered as the circle of cold metal dug into her flesh.
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ he said in a dead-flat voice. ‘Scream and I’ll fucking put the nut on you right now.’ He turned to the gunman at his side. ‘Get this slag in the van.’
‘What about the peelers, Bill? We’ll have woken up the whole neighbourhood. They’ll be here any minute.’ The second gunman’s voice jangled like a bag of rusty washers. He had the awkward demeanour of a kid not yet out of his teens and a scrawny physique to match. Stilts rounded on Skinny, shooting him an evil glare.
‘Never mind about the cops. Just get a bloody move on.’
Skinny, clearly scared, nodded quickly. He grabbed Chance and manhandled her towards the Transit. As they hurried along she glanced across her shoulder and saw the other two gunmen scraping Kicker off the ground. His head hung low and from the little she could see of his features, his face had been beaten to a pulp. It looked like a tissue someone had used to staunch a nosebleed. His eyes were closed. Drool spilled down his chin. He appeared to be unconscious. The two gunmen dragged him towards the side of the Transit. Chance swung her head back to Stilts and Skinny. Her mind was racing, still unable to process the past few minutes. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Not to her. Not now.
‘You’re making a big mistake,’ she said, her voice high as she strained to keep a lid on the panic rising in her throat. ‘I’m a civilian. A government officer, not a soldier. Let me go.’
Stilts looked back at her. There was a cold and impersonal gleam in his eyes and she felt it then – the hatred burning inside him towards her, towards every Brit. ‘Just get in the van, bitch.’
Chance opened her mouth to argue again. But Stilts clamped a hand over it and squeezed hard with his filthy-nailed fingers, silencing her. Stilts slid back the side door of the Transit and shoved her in. She let out a gasp as she hit the floor. The inside of the van was a cold void filled with the smell of fresh paint and sawdust. A moment Kicker was dumped beside her. He didn’t make a noise. His eyes were clamped shut, his mouth slack. Then Stilts and Skinny climbed in after their victims.
‘We did it,’ said Skinny, shaking with disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ, we did it.’
‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ said Stilts, pulling the door shut. ‘We’ve still got to get this slut across the border. Keep your guard up, son.’
‘Aye, Bill.’
‘And stop using my fucking name!’
Chance lay there in the stippled darkness, light trickling through the metal grille between the driver’s cab and the rear compartment. Kicker lay sprawled on his front, his features turned to mush, blood bubbling from his nostrils. Everything seemed unreal to the agent. Stilts banged a fist on the grille. A moment later the driver started the engine and as the van pulled away and over to the left, Chance felt her stomach shoot up into her throat.
Stilts turned back to her and booted her in the groin. She lay dry-heaving on the floor, bent double with agony. Skinny looked on as his mate followed up with a right hook to Chance’s face. The blow snapped her head back and sent a hot pain shooting down her spine. Her world disintegrated into dim shapes and blunted shadows. The Transit shuddered as it picked up speed. Chance tried to shake her head clear. Her world semi-resolved. She was conscious of Stilts towering over her. Even though he was wearing a balaclava, she could have sworn he was grinning at her.
‘Smile, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Your wish is about to come true.’
‘What wish?’ Chance asked anxiously. ‘Who are you?’
‘We’re from the Nutting Squad, love. We’re taking you to meet Costello. He wants a word.’
