BlindFire (30 page)

  "The system seems fine to me." Said the Colonel. "Remember this is only a back up, the real security is always done by our guys on the ground."

  Gunter returned the screens to show the conference hall and outer corridors. "There are too many blind spots. If we had time to reposition the cameras...."

  "Well we haven't." He shrugged. "I'm going to take a look around." He turned to leave and then paused knowing from experience that Gunter would soon follow.

  "Let me just train a camera on the podium and I'll be with you."

  The Colonel smiled, as predictable as ever. They turned right out of the security office and headed down the short corridor towards where the Prime minister would make his
speech in less than eighteen
hours.

  Gunter checked his wrist watch; he knew what John was thinking. Well not exactly, but he got a feeling that the Colonel was worried about the time. "The rest of our guys should be here in a couple of hours."

  "How many are we posting?" The Colonel didn't know this simply because it wasn't his department. Administration and electronic support was Günter’s job.

  "Altogether fou
rteen if you include me, you Danny
and Beth."

  "They have double that amount during the day."

  "I know. But there isn't hundreds of reporters running around the place at three o’clock in the morning, is there?"

  The Colonel gave him that look, the sort that says so what and then pointed. "That's the podium, has it been searched for bombs yet."

  Gunter was getting annoyed now. "Excuse me John but I know my job as well as you know yours if not better, so get off my back.
The police dogs are coming in later today.
"

  "I'm sorry... We can't afford anything to go wrong. With the peace negotiations at this point the country needs its leader, especially this one."

  "Tell you what if it comes to the crunch and I see any bullets headed his way I'll catch them."

  The Colonel laughed, the past few minutes had reminded him of the old day
s when they had been chasing Danny and Mckay
across
Europe
. "No. We don't need him that much."

  It was the Colonels turn to look at his watch this time. "We have to go and collect our security passes now."

  "Before you go making any other plans for tomorrow I want to come back and monitor the sound and lighting Engineers as they set up."

  "What's up don't you trust Special Branch."

Gunter walked a few steps. "I wouldn't trust them to walk my dog."

  "You haven't got a dog."

  "I'm thinking of getting one, I think maybe a
Labrador
."

***

  Beth entered the empty waiting room from the Doctors office and went straight to the table with all the old magazines on it. She skimmed over the front pages before an article on child abduction in
London
caught her eye, sliding the magazine off the table she sat down. She only managed one sentence and realised how silly she was being. Taking her mind off the fact that she was pregnant wouldn't help much. How could the Doctor be right? When could it have happened? Me
, Beth Stone
pregnant! She shook her head in a mixture of despair and disbelief. She co
uldn't be happy or sad until Danny
knew about it, and wondered what his reaction would be; anyway there was so much damage to her lower body and sexual organs that she expected bad news from the Doctor.

 
"Mrs. Stone
in to Doctor Thorpe." Came a voice over the tannoy system.

  Beths stomach turned as she stood and absentmindedly tossed the magazine back on to the table, it landed close to the edge and slowly slid off. He was smiling broadly as Beth entered and sat down.

 
"Well Mrs. Stone
, the tests are all completed; I'd say you're about two and a half months pregnant. That's the good news, I'm afraid with all the scaring and damage to your vagina your child may not be able to have a natural birth."

  "What....?" Inwardly she panicked; outwardly she licked her dry lips.

"What exactly are you saying?"

  "I can't be one hundred percent sure but just maybe I'm talking about a cesarean." He closed her file notes and asked her to make an appointment for next Thursday. "It's just a simple scan." He added. "And then I'd like to see you once a month after that."

  She smiled nervously and left the clinic in a daze. Beth walked for hours through
Hyde Park
, passing her own place twice;
she was put off going in by Danny’s
new car parked at the front.

  "
Shit." She spat as she heard him
calling her name. Turning slowly she waved and crossed the road to where he was standing. "Hi. Where are you headed?" She asked.

  He
walked around his car, opened the passenger door and invited her in. "Shopping trip."

  She slid
on to the passenger seat and Danny
closed the door. "Where are we going?" She shouted. There was something in his eyes, she'd noticed it immediately. He was excited about something, something he was keeping to himself for now.

  Th
e engine exploded into life, he
turned and smiled. "shopping."

  "You know don't you." The words were barely audible over the music from the car stereo.

  "You’re carrying my baby Beth; I'm the happiest man in
London
right now."

  "How did you know?"

  "Give me some credit. I've been pregnant twice before you know."

  Beth managed to laugh. "I think you men get the easy part."

  "You don't seem too thrilled about this baby. What's the problem?"

  She looked at him through troubled eyes. "No matter how far away I get from my bad memories they just keep coming back to haunt me. If I don't have the baby by cesarean section I could lose it."

  "Why?"

  Her lips trembled with rage as she spoke. "Because of Jack most of my sexual organs are beyond repair. Because of him I could lose our baby."

  "I see." Danny said
quietly. "But other than that you're quite happy to have my children... I mean, you do want this kid?"

  "Of course I do, I'm your wife. We have to leave the past exactly where it is and move on." She took his hand and squeezed it tight.

  "Right then,
where is the baby
shop. You know that spare room right next to ours will do fine as a nursery and........."

***

  Michael Redpath left his home earlier than usual today but instead of turning left to go to
Downing Street
he turned right. Thirty minutes later he was on the M25 Westbound.

  As the personal aide to the Prime Minister, Michael had only achieved his life ambition in part and that was to work in Ten Downing Street. At forty-five years old he still felt he had it in him to run the Country but unfortunately for him the rest of the party preferred that prat, as he liked to call his boss. And it was for that reason and money of course that he spied for the IRA, or had done up until the cease-fire.

  A further ten minutes later he pulled off at the Wokingham turn-off and headed south. He spotted the blue transit van almost immediately up ahead in a lay by. Slowing down he looked in his mirrors and indicated left and then gave the signal, a single flash of his headlights.

 
“Dick head!”
Jack
cursed when he saw the lights
, he didn't need the stupid signal, he knew Redpaths car by sight. He waited until the car had pulled up some twenty yards behind and then went and got in beside
Sir
Michael Redpath. "You're late." He barked, a little too forcefully for Michaels liking, who considered himself way above such IRA minions.

  "You've got five minutes, so hurry up."

  "Have you got my Press card so I can get in tomorrow?"

  The MP for Basington South nervously looked in the mirror and then over his shoulder and carefully retrieved his brief case, then opened it. "The card says you’re
a Sound Engineer
, which isn't th
at far from the truth actually…  As in you’re going to make a lot of noise!”

  The joke was lost on Jack who
impatiently snatched the small card and inspected it, it looked good. As good as any forgery he had ever seen. "Ok. So what else you got for me then?"

  Michael reached under his seat and pulled out an envelope. "In here you will find Twenty thousand pounds in traveler’s cheques, a ticket to
New Zealand
and a new identity.

  "What
do I need that for? I ain't going anywhere."

  "Listen to me you stupid little Irishman..... You make the hit and disappear. When I'm elected as the new Prime Minister my use for you and
Northern Ireland
will finish.... Did you hear me....? FINISHED!" He shouted that last word as if to emphasize the finality. "This wasn't about freeing
Ireland
, it was politics.  I've been running your precious Army for
twenty years! And do you want to know why....?"

  "Power...."

  "Yes.... Power. The power to run the great country of mine as the Prime minister.... I will be Prime minister of
England
,
Scotland
, and
Wales
and of course Northern
Ireland
and there's nothing you can do about it."

  Jack half turned in his seat and in that brief second slipped a knife from out of his
belt.  "I can't see it my self,
Infact I think I
'm sitting next to a complete numpty
and there's no way I'd let a prick like you ever..." His right arm jerked out powerfully forcing the knife deep into the MP's side.  "...Ever
run
Northern Ireland
... As for the Brits, I fecking hate the Brits but I wouldn’t wish a traitorous knob head like you on my worst enemy!
"

  The MP's body jerked as he struggled for that last breath, as he turned to see his killer smiling and as he  realised the greatest pain, not the one of dying but the one of never going down in history as the  Prime Minister of England. It was strange for in that second of death he could just see tomorrow’s headlines.....

  Jack just sat there for a while watching the color drain from his victims face. "You used us; you watched u
s die on the streets and in gaol
and you watched us starve ourselves to death to free our country. You caused al
l of that just to hold a stupid
title for a couple of years." He rubbed his face and swept his hair back with his hands. "You caused it all.....  All the death and misery. My wife, I don't suppose you remember the day you killed her, the day you
r man shot her, you b
astard." Overwhelming compulsion drove him to smash the knife in to the dead mans chest again and again over and over, until the knife was so slippery from blood that he could no longer hold it. Dizzy with rage he fell out of the car on to the wet road and stumbled back to his van. It was when he got in and was about to drive away that he started shaking.

  "It's all wrong." He cried and looked up at the sky. "You all died for nothing." He cried and then screamed. "For nothing! You hear me up there? For nothing."

  Jack had only been gone a matter of seconds before a  Police Range
r
over pulled up and found what was left of the body. The murder was never solved and the case remains open. Every Newspaper in the land covered the story and few came close to the truth. One particular Newspaper even claimed ‘That he died for nothing'.

***

  Jack had trouble sleeping that night and nervously paced the room well in to the small hours. Everything had to be perfect; everything had to be just right. After checking the microphone for the tenth time he sat down on a stool and went over the building plans again but soon bored of this and threw them across the room. The problem wasn't with the building or the microphone; it was with him and the fact that he wouldn't be able to take in a weapon to defend himself.

  He gazed over at Sahra and thought about letting her go, and then it dawned on him. He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and wrote a message on it, and then he laughed at his own private joke. If all else failed at least he, Jack Mckay, would have the last laugh.

  Sleep soon claimed his tiered body easily as nightmares filled his mind
with visions
o
f riots
and
Orange
marches, dark clad Soldiers shooting through grey smoke and boys, no more than seven years old, being the target of baton rounds and CS gas. It was the same when ever he slept, first the sound of explosions and shooting then the acrid smoke and burning flames, lastly the blood, Irish blood, everywhere.
The red river s
pilling down the streets of Belfast, washing the dea
d and dying away into huge gaols,
surrounded by machine gun nests and razor wire a hundred feet high.