Once A Pilgrim. James Deegan

away.

      And he felt his guts lurch.

      ‘Your man there…’ he said softly, almost to himself.

      Moustache’s shirt and pully and jacket looked like an Oxfam scarecrow’s hand-me-downs, and his hair was collar-length and unkempt.

      But it was all too carefully done – too studied.

      It looked like an act, and it didn’t hide his bearing, which was fit, and strong, and confident.

      Military.

      Sick Sean would never know it, but he was spot on.

      The man was a lance-jack in 3 Para Close Observation Platoon, dressed in civvies and driving an admin vehicle from a resupply visit to his mates at Springfield Road RUC, where they were pulling extra hours for the visit of the Iron Lady.

      Bastard fate had brought Sick Sean and the man with the moustache together, separated only by a few millimetres of glass and a white line.

      Moustache’s passenger and vehicle commander were idly looking out of their own windows in the opposite direction from the stolen vehicle, visually covering their arcs while stopped, oblivious for now as to who was on their right.

      But Moustache was suddenly wide awake, eyes narrowed, trying to place the face, flicking into the rear of the Sierra.

       That guy looks familiar. Who the…?

      Sick Sean could almost see his cogs turning, his mind’s eye flicking through mugshots and briefings.

      Then he saw it click into place.

      Sean Casey.

      Sick Sean Casey.

      At that point, Moustache should have yawned and broken his stare – he’d had it hammered into him enough times by the SAS instructors at Hythe and Lydd – but even the best of men can fall victim to the shock of the moment.

      Instead, he turned to the vehicle commander.

      ‘That’s that cunt Sean Casey, opposite,’ he said, under his breath. ‘And it might be Ciaran O’Brien in the back.’

      The commander snapped his head around and locked eyes with O’Brien.

      ‘We’re made,’ said Sean, a flustered edge to his voice. ‘The fucking SAS!’

      The soldier said something to his passenger, and reached down.

      That was enough for O’Brien. A split second later, he brought up his AK47 and opened fire from the back seat.

      The blinding muzzle flash lit up the interior of the vehicle, but it was the noise which really shocked Gerard Casey. It was thunderous, the pressure from the long burst resonating through the car and erupting out of the destroyed window.

      In his panic, O’Brien fired off almost a full magazine. They were unaimed shots, the weapon jumping around in his grip, but even so it was a minor miracle that only one round found its target. That round took the COP lance-corporal in his right shoulder, split and scored and shattered its way down his humerus, and exited near his elbow, putting him completely out of the game.

      O’Brien was shouting, ‘Drive! Drive! Drive!’ but Casey was already on his way.

      Gunning the engine, swerving round the bus, battering and scraping his way past the traffic behind the Army car.

      The carburettor sucking in air.

      Behind them, the COP vehicle commander had stepped out onto the tarmac, his Heckler and Koch MP5K raised.

      He fired two short, aimed bursts into the rear of the moving vehicle, which was now ahead of the bus and accelerating away, sliding left and right, wheels squealing.

      The back window frosted from the impact of the rounds, but, with civilians in cars and on foot, he was forced to hold his fire as the Sierra got beyond thirty metres.

      But one of his rounds had done its job.

      It had entered the rear right side of Ciaran O’Brien’s neck and had exited the front left side, opening the jugular vein as it passed through flesh and muscle, blood and matter spraying over Sean and Gerard. O’Brien was thrown forward and released the AK, and it clattered and slid past the gearstick and into the front passenger footwell at Gerard Casey’s feet.

      Sick Sean screamed through the traffic and turned right through a gap into Clonard Street, his mind whirling with the noise and smell of shooting and sudden fear.

      ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ yelled Gerard, scrabbling on the floor for the Webley which had been jolted from his grasp, and ignoring the AK.

      He looked over his shoulder at O’Brien. Both his hands were trying to stem the flow of blood from the gaping hole in his neck and he was gasping for air, drowning in his own blood.

      Nothing would save him.

      Narrowly missing a car coming out of the Clonards, Sean Casey gritted his teeth and put his foot further down, desperate to put as much distance as possible, as quickly as possible, between himself and the soldiers, so that they could torch the car and fuck off.

      They might have made it, too, but for the fact that a mixed RUC/Army VCP had been set up at the far end of Clonard Gardens.

      The sound of the gunfire was masked and confused by the ambient noise, but several of the soldiers and their RUC colleagues had instantly turned their heads in the direction of the Falls.

      Then the screaming pitch of the Sierra’s engine confirmed that something was going down.

      And now they saw the car race into the Clonards.

      ‘Army!’ shouted Gerard.

      His brother had already seen them, and was yanking the wheel right into Odessa Street. But even as he began the turn, he knew he was in trouble. The Ford wasn’t designed to take ninety degree corners on slick, sleety roads at approaching fifty miles per hour, and as it screeched and skidded over the wet tarmac the tyres lost their grip.

      The car careened into a parked truck, bounced back out into the street, and clipped the kerb on the opposite side.

      Now completely out of control, it mounted the pavement and smashed through the low wall in front of one of the squat, red-brick terraced houses, burying its bonnet in a bay window.

      There it sat for a few moments, engine revving madly in neutral, until Sean Casey leaned forward and switched it off.

      Ciaran O’Brien had been thrown forward between the front seats. He lay still and silent, blood pulsing from his neck in eversmaller spurts.

      ‘Come on, Gerry,’ said Sean, scrabbling and reaching into the front foot well where the AK had ended up. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

      ‘What about Ciaran?’

      ‘Fuck him, he’s dead.’

      ‘We need to torch the car! That’s the plan!’

      ‘No time. Fucking come on!’

      Sean Casey pushed open the driver’s door – it was buckled, so it wasn’t easy – and staggered out of the wreckage.

      As he stood up, two things happened.

      The first was that the front door of the neighbouring house opened, and a young woman appeared.

      The second was that several of the soldiers from the VCP sprinted around the corner and started towards them.

      ‘In there!’ shouted Sean to his younger brother, pointing at the open doorway.

      But Gerard stood motionless, pistol still in his hand, half-raised.

      In one weird moment of clarity, he thought to himself: This is karma. I should not have murdered Billy Jones.

      Sean stared back at the soldiers.

      This