Fair Game (9 page)

‘I suppose not,’ said Shepherd.

Stockmann finished her beer. ‘Well, I think that’s us done,’ she said.

‘You don’t want another one?’

‘I’m working all afternoon,’ said the psychologist. ‘I’ll need a clear head.’

‘And what’s the prognosis?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Am I fit for purpose?’

Stockmann laughed. ‘Of course you are, Dan. But you knew that before you even sat down.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘It always amazes me what little effect your profession seems to have on you.’

‘Water off a duck’s back,’ said Shepherd. He grinned as he stood up and extended his hand. ‘See you in six months.’

Seamus Maguire looked up as he heard the rattle of a key in the lock of his cell door. The officer who opened the door was a new face, in his late forties with thinning hair and a beer gut that protruded over his belt. ‘Your solicitor’s here,’ he said, pushing the door wide. ‘Hop to it.’

Maguire got off his bunk. He was wearing a prison-issue tracksuit. They’d taken his sweatshirt and cargo pants off him when he was arrested, along with his shoes. Now he was wearing an old pair of trainers that were a size too big. Maguire hadn’t complained; he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. He could take anything they threw at him, they were the enemy and he was at war. ‘I didn’t ask for a solicitor,’ he said.

‘Ask or don’t ask, I don’t give a flying fuck,’ growled the officer. ‘I’m told to take you along for a meeting with your solicitor and that’s what I’m doing. Now get the fuck out of this cell or you can whistle for your tea tonight.’

The prison officer led the way along the landing and down a flight of metal stairs. He unlocked the gate leading off the cell block and stepped back to allow Maguire to go through, then relocked it. He took Maguire along a corridor to the visitors’ hall. There was a private room just before the double doors that led to the main hall and the officer jerked a thumb at it. ‘Your brief’s in there,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting here, come out when you’re done.’

Maguire let himself into the room. There was a single table, bolted to the floor, and four grey plastic chairs on spindly metal legs. There was a middle-aged man in a brown suit sitting at the table, a battered briefcase by his feet. Standing in the corner of the room was a woman in a dark business suit, her red hair tied back in a ponytail. Maguire sneered at the man. ‘I don’t need a solicitor,’ he said. ‘I don’t recognise the Police Service of Northern Ireland and I won’t be recognising the British court that tries to judge me.’

The man shrugged and took out an iPod. He pushed white earphones into his ears and settled back in his chair. He folded his arms and closed his eyes.

‘What the fuck?’ said Maguire.

‘Don’t bother about him, Seamus, he’s just my ticket in here,’ said the woman. She gestured at the chair. ‘Sit yourself down, now.’

‘What?’ said Maguire, totally confused. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m the woman who’s been sent to find out how and why you managed to fuck up so badly. So do as I said and sit the fuck down.’

Maguire stared at her. She was in her late twenties, and while her accent was Irish she wasn’t from Belfast. The border maybe. Or even from the Republic.

‘Are you with the Ra?’

She pointed at the chair. ‘Best let me ask the questions, Seamus. We’ll get along much better that way.’

Maguire sat down and cupped his hands together. ‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ he said. ‘I haven’t said one word since they arrested me. And I won’t be recognising the court, or their justice system. I’m insisting that I be treated as a political prisoner.’

‘Very noble of you, Seamus.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘Now what the fuck happened?’ she asked.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Maguire.

‘At this stage it’s not about blame, it’s about finding out what happened,’ she said. ‘The Army Council needs to know what went down because the cops aren’t saying anything.’

‘How much do you know?’

The woman pointed at his face. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Seamus. Your balls are on the line and I’m holding the knife. If I don’t go back to the Council with a true account of what happened, you’ll be dead before you even get to trial.’

‘Do you know about O’Leary?’

The woman frowned. ‘What about O’Leary?’

Maguire ran his hands through his unkempt hair. ‘It all turned to shit,’ he said. ‘O’Leary was working for the cops. Undercover, double agent, I don’t know what the fuck he is but he’s got a Special Branch handler. The bomb was never going to get anywhere near the police station, the SAS had it staked out.’

‘We knew that one of you was a traitor, but we didn’t know it was O’Leary,’ said the woman.

‘Who did you think it was?’ he asked, and before she opened her mouth to reply he saw the answer in her eyes. ‘Me?’ he said. ‘You thought it was me?’

‘You were the youngest, Seamus,’ said the woman. ‘You had less of a track record.’

‘You bastards,’ hissed Maguire.

‘What happened?’ asked the woman. ‘Shots were fired, we know that much, but we don’t know who got shot. Who was shooting, Seamus? Was it the cops?’

Maguire frowned. ‘Is that what you think? The cops?’

‘We don’t know what to think because there’s been a news blackout,’ said the woman. ‘That’s why I’m here. So if not the cops, what the hell happened?’

Maguire sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘We were ready to go. The bomb was armed, Willie knew exactly what he had to do. Then three men in ski masks burst in. Nasty bastards.’

‘One of them had a long leather coat?’

Maguire nodded. ‘He was the one giving orders.’

‘That was Declan Connolly. He was the Council’s man. He was there to nail the traitor.’

‘Yeah, well, he did that. He put the four of us into a van and drove us somewhere, then pulled some stunt with a phone. O’Leary’s phone rang and he said that O’Leary was a rat. So the guy, Connolly, puts a gun to O’Leary’s head and says he’s going to shoot him and then the shit hits the fan. One of the other guys shoots Connolly in the chest, twice, then he turns and shoots the other guy. Fast, professional, he doesn’t say anything.’

‘What did he look like, the shooter?’

‘He was wearing a ski mask. Bit under six feet, jeans, trainers, bomber jacket. Glock.’

‘Were the jeans black? Or blue?’

‘Black.’

‘And the jacket? Brown leather? Elasticated waist? Bit worn?’

Maguire nodded. ‘That’s him.’

‘Did he say anything?’

Maguire shook his head.

‘Did you get a feeling that this guy was a cop too, like O’Leary?’

‘He wasn’t with O’Leary. He just high-tailed it out of there like he was the bloody Lone Ranger or something. He took Ryan’s phone and left. The cops turned up twenty minutes later. They took us all away.’

‘Including O’Leary?’

‘Yeah, but I haven’t seen him since. I haven’t seen Ray or Willie either, though.’

‘Ray and Willie are being held in different prisons. O’Leary’s vanished. The shooter, did he say anything before he left?’

‘Yeah, he was pissed off big time because of what had happened. He asked O’Leary if he was a cop and he said he was. O’Leary said that he’d been undercover for two years. Can you believe that? Gerry fucking O’Leary was a rat for two bloody years.’

‘What else did the shooter say?’

‘Something about being an idiot for using his phone. Not sending text messages. My ears were still ringing from the shots so I couldn’t make out everything he said. But he was as angry as hell. O’Leary asked him to untie him but he wouldn’t.’

‘Anything else?’

Maguire shook his head. ‘That’s all I can remember,’ he said. He leaned forward. ‘What happens now?’ he asked.

‘We try to minimise the damage that O’Leary’s done,’ she said. ‘They’ve already arrested McGrory in Limerick and there’ll be more arrests to come. Then we’ll go after the shooter.’

‘I meant me,’ said Maguire. ‘What happens to me?’

The woman smiled coldly. ‘You, Seamus? You’re well fucked.’ She nodded at the solicitor, whose head was bobbing back and forth in time to whatever music he was listening to on his iPod. ‘You’re doing the right thing not bothering with a lawyer. You can plead guilty or not guilty, but whatever you do it’s going to be life. You know that, right?’

Maguire nodded glumly.

‘The word from the Council is that they want you to refuse to recognise the court and insist on political prisoner status,’ she said. ‘Go on to a dirty protest if need be.’

‘That’s what I’ve been doing since they banged me up,’ said Maguire. ‘I keep telling them I want off the wing. But they’re just ignoring me.’

‘Stick at it,’ she said.

‘What about Ray and Willie?’

‘I’ll be going in to see them.’

‘Do you think they’ll put us together?’

‘Maybe after the trial,’ said the woman. ‘Not before. They don’t want you exchanging information. But look on the bright side. The fight has only just started. At some point down the line there’ll be a settlement and you’ll be released to a hero’s welcome. All you’ve got to do is hang on in there.
Tiocfaidh ár lá
,’ she said. Our day will come.

Maguire nodded. ‘
Tiocfaidh ár lá
,’ he echoed.

‘What do you think?’ asked Button, looking around the sitting room. They were on the tenth floor of an apartment block in Praed Street, part of the Paddington Basin development. The building was just a short walk from Paddington Station, and the flat had two bedrooms and a good-sized bathroom and had been fitted out with modern Italian furniture and a big-screen LED on one wall.

Shepherd nodded. ‘It’s good,’ he said. There was a framed photograph on a table of a man and woman in their sixties. ‘My parents?’

‘Eric and Elsie,’ said Button, handing him a manila envelope. ‘Details are all in here. You’re Oliver Blackburn and you work for a consultancy firm in the Midlands but you’ve been based in London for the past two years. If anyone checks the lease of this place they’ll find that you’ve been here for eighteen months.’ She gave him a box of newly printed business cards and a BlackBerry. ‘The numbers on the card go through to this mobile and to an office in Birmingham, an MI5 front that we use for a lot of legends.’ She grinned. ‘We’re better at this than SOCA ever was.’ She sat down on a leather and chrome chair and crossed her legs. ‘Basically the company in Hammersmith has been told that a consultant is being sent in to look at ways of increasing efficiency. That way you can wander around and ask all the questions you want. You’ll be given a desk but it’s then up to you to go where you want and pretty much do as you want.’

‘And who there’s going to know who I really am?’

‘No one,’ said Button. ‘Even the managing director thinks you’re the real thing. We’ve arranged it through the main holding company’s chief executive, and other than him no one knows who you are.’

‘Consultant covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it?’

‘Exactly. You can arrange interviews with all our suspects and ask them anything you want.’

Shepherd sat down on a black leather sofa as a shaven-headed man in a tight-fitting Armani T-shirt and faded jeans came out of the main bedroom carrying a clipboard. He was Damien Plant and he was one of MI5’s dressers, who supplied the props to back up any legend. ‘There’s half a dozen suits in the wardrobe,’ he said. ‘I’ve given you a dozen shirts, handmade by a firm in Birmingham, but I’ve left the shoes up to you. All in all it’s much nicer gear than you had in Belfast.’ He handed the clipboard to Shepherd. ‘Just sign at the bottom.’

Shepherd scrawled his signature and gave the clipboard back to him.

‘You can keep the clothes once the operation’s done,’ said Plant.

‘They can go to charity,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m not a great fan of suits. Do I get a car?’

‘No need,’ said Button. ‘You can get to Hammersmith from Paddington easily enough.’

‘Well, my work here is done,’ said Plant. He shook hands with Shepherd, kissed Button effeminately on both cheeks, and left.

‘You’ll be glad to hear that Caroline Stockmann gave you a clean bill of health,’ Button said to Shepherd as the front door closed.

‘She’s a good judge of character,’ said Shepherd, opening the manila envelope. He slid the contents on to the coffee table. There was a year-old driving licence with his photograph and the address of the flat, and a three-year-old passport, both in the name of Oliver Blackburn.

‘The licence and passport are the genuine thing so you can use them anywhere,’ said Button. There was an American Express credit card showing that he had been a card member since 1998 and a Nationwide debit card. He grinned at Button but she was already wagging her finger at him. ‘Emergencies only,’ she said. ‘But if paying a bill with one of them adds to the legend, all well and good. Just remember that everything goes through the accounts department and they use a very fine-tooth comb.’

‘I presume I’m there until I find out who’s helping Crazy Boy?’

‘As long as it takes,’ she said. ‘But I wouldn’t think it’ll take you too long. We’re not talking about a career criminal here, when all’s said and done. And at least no one’s likely to shoot you.’

‘That’ll be a nice change,’ said Shepherd.

Manhunt was Crazy Boy’s favourite game. He could slaughter and maim and torture with impunity, and the graphics were as close to real as you could imagine. The one thing he didn’t like was that his actions were controlled by the mysterious Director, who kept issuing orders. In the real world, Crazy Boy was the giver of orders, not a taker, and if Manhunt was real the first thing he would do would be to put a bullet between the Director’s eyes. In the first level he had to kill the Hoods, a gang of blacks and Hispanics, and the graphics were so good that some of the guys he got to kill reminded him of men he knew back in Puntland. Then he went after a white supremacist gang called the Skinz and that was the part he liked best, marauding through a city killing whites. He wondered what it would be like to do it for real, to pick up an AK-47 and walk down Oxford Street, shooting at random. There were other gangs he had to kill, the Wardogs and the Innocentz and the Smileys, but it wasn’t as much fun killing them as it was with the Skinz.