Midnight Runner - Jack Higgins [39]
Back inside, Kate was saying, "So you're managing all right with the Palestinian instructors?"
"Just about."
"So if I wanted a serious project taken care of, one that would require expertise in the bomb department, where would I go? I asked you this when we last met, remember, and asked you to think about it."
"The best internationally is still the IRA, although the Prods are moving into the market. What about those people you hired when you wanted a hit on the Council of Elders on their way to the Holy Wells? Aidan Bell, wasn't it, along with Tony Brosnan and Jack O'Hara?"
"All long gone. Sean Dillon killed Aidan."
"Ah. A bastard, Sean, though he was a good comrade in the old days." He smiled. "And him working for the Brits now."
"So what would you suggest?"
"Strangely enough, Aidan's cousin on his mother's side, Barry Keenan. Drumcree is his patch these days. The Provos are out of it. He thinks they're a bunch of old women. His affiliation these days is to the Real IRA, and they're back with old-fashioned Republicanism. There's an Irish saying, which roughly translated means those kind of people would shoot the Pope if they thought it would advance the cause."
"That's a good one. Can you arrange for me to see Keenan?"
"Not in England, there are outstanding charges against him there."
"Ireland?"
"Oh, yes, even in the North the RUC won't touch him, not since the peace process began."
"I'll see him in Drumcree. Arrange it for me."
"It'll take time."
"I'm not in a rush." She stood up. "Let's see if the wind has dropped enough for Rupert to have a look at the camp."
Colum said, curious, "Do you know about this sort of business, Mr. Dauncey?"
"You could say that." Rupert smiled lazily.
T hey were escorted to a large tent on the outskirts of the encampment. Half a dozen young Arabs were in there, faced by an instructor across two trestle tables, on which various items necessary to the explosives business were laid out. There were timer pencils, other kinds of fuses, clockwork, timers, and various samples of explosives. It was all very basic, and Rupert was not impressed.
"Let's move on," he said to McGee, "before I lose my enthusiasm."
They went to the shooting range, where recruits were lying down, propped on their elbows, cut-out targets of men standing four hundred meters away.
"Pass me your glasses," Rupert told McGee, and he focused on the targets. "Not so good. A few random hits, but most of your men are missing."
"And you could do better? If you were familiar with the AK, you'd know it's at its finest as a close quarter automatic weapon. Four hundred meters is a stretch for anyone." He tried to kill the sarcasm and failed. "But then you know the AK intimately, I suppose?"
"Well, I have been shot in the left shoulder by one, but luckily that was in the last week of the Gulf War." Rupert went forward. "Personally, I've always found it an excellent single-shot weapon."
Colum McGee went and got one from a wooden rack, picked up a magazine, and rammed it home. He held it out. "Show us."
"My pleasure." Rupert handed the glasses to Kate. "Let's just take the first five from the left and the last five on the right."
Colum blew a whistle and made a signal. Everyone stopped firing, unloaded, and stood up. The instructor shouted at them and they moved back. Rupert went forward. He didn't lie down but stood, then raised the AK to his shoulder, and started to fire slowly and carefully. There was a moan from the crowd as he finished, and Kate lowered the glasses and turned to McGee.
"Ten head shots. I only know one other man that good, and he killed my brother George and three men at four hundred meters--Sean Dillon."
"I've never seen anything like it," Colum said.
"Well, you wouldn't," Kate told him. "What next?"
"Unarmed combat. They tend to do well at that. Most of them are off the streets anyway."
The required area was on the other side of the oasis behind the palm trees, where