The two fallen men regained their feet. O’Connor stood in the rain, his hands raised above his head, as the water ran down his cheeks, his hair sticking to his head like a damp pall. The driver stood beside him, shaking, his bloodied face smeared in dirt and swollen but with his hands raised. The RUC detective nearest to them kept a Sterling submachine gun pointed at O’Connor’s chest, O’Connor stared back defiantly as if anger might deflect a hail of 9mm bullets. Moran stood beside the Zephyr and shouted into the radio handset, which he brandished like a bludgeon through the open window. A voice came over the damp ether, disconnected from the world but suddenly panicked like a fearful ghost: it was the observation post. Moran turned around, a triumphantly raised fist turned to an accusatory finger. “There’s another fecking car,” he shouted over the rain, “another fecking car!” Templeman turned to look in the direction of the border, but the land was a black screen and impenetrable: the vehicle was approaching from the direction of Newtonbutler. The men turned, as headlights approached, the beams denying any sense of the form of the mystic shape as it cut through the rain.
“Are they RUC?!” shouted Templeman.
Moran ignored him and walked a few paces along the road, his clothes now drenched in water, and peered into the darkness. “Not RUC, only us here. They’ve no radio, or not using it.”
At a bend in the road, about one hundred yards off, the vehicle came into view, for a moment its shape silhouetted against the horizon: it was a large saloon, moving at speed with ominous intent, cleaving through the rain. The saloon contained three men; it stopped abruptly, its headlights pinching the dark, to reveal the RUC officers and the wrecked car. The driver and the front seat passenger exited, the appearance of their silhouettes prompting the cocking of the Sterling machinegun as the RUC detective standing by O’Connor swung around to face the new threat.
“Go no further!” shouted Moran. “We’re RUC officers. Identify yoursen!”
An English voice came out of the dark, modulated, and angry.
“Let those men go Moran! Damn you!”
Moran, smarting at the rebuke, took a step closer.
“Who the feck are you?”
The man with the English voice stepped closer, his form cutting into the beam of one of the headlights from the saloon. As the light washed over his face, Templeman gasped: the man was the Service officer who had accompanied Phillips at the briefing in London.
“That is not important Moran! What matters is that you have not carried out your orders and are threatening the success of the operation!”
“Oh! So I am, am I?”
“Moran, I know him!” shouted Templeman, his mind racing. Moran turned to Templeman.
“Another ponce I suppose, like you, who didn’e think the Ulster police are up to the job!”
The Englishman turned back and called to the third man in the saloon. “Walsh!” The door opened, and a figure emerged from the back seat; Chief Inspector Walsh stepped between the headlight beams and walked up to and then beyond Moran. He had the appearance of a man struggling to control his emotions, under the duress of not being in charge. He surveyed the cluster of RUC detectives, the IRA men, the wrecked car, and the relentless rain.
“Do what he says inspector. Let them go. I’ll see you in my office tomorrow,” he said in a raised voice as the rain fell in sticks of water.
“They’ll ha to walk to Belfast,” said Moran mockingly, “their car had a wee accident.”
“Mind you tongue inspector, or you’ll walk to Belfast!” retorted the Englishman.
Moran looked affronted, Walsh looked resigned, and by an action of his hand signalled that the confrontation was to be at an end. The Englishman beckoned to the two IRA men, who walked cautiously forward. As the driver passed him, the Englishman tapped his shoulder, just a glancing action, but Templeman appreciated its significance. All the men then got into the saloon, which drove away in the direction of Newtonbutler.
“Do you have a problem inspector?” asked McCreadie.
“I wasn’t sent to Belfast to maintain surveillance on an IRA operative, it was to give credible cover to a Secret Service operation to extract one of their agents.”
“O’Connor is valuable.”
“That isn’t who I meant sir. O’Connor was the one-man extraction team, the man who drove him from Dublin across the border was the agent that the Service wanted to get out. It was a set up.”
“Keep your opinions to yourself inspector.”
“I will sir, but you haven’t contradicted me, and nor will Mr. Philips.”
McCreadie coloured, Templeman knew that he had overstepped the boundary of dissent.
“I would remind you inspector that you are a serving police officer, and subject to disciplinary sanction. Now, I will hear no more of your speculations! Is that clear?”
“Yes sir.”
Templeman stood for a moment in the corridor outside McCreadie’s office to regain his composure, his thoughts full of his younger self, and Suez.
Copyright © David Alexander 2024