Bandit Country. Peter Corrigan

      

      Bandit Country

      PETER CORRIGAN

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

      Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

      Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey / Arcangel Images

      Peter Corrigan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008155391

      Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155407

      Version: 2015-11-04

      This book is respectfully dedicated to the officers and men of C Company, 4^th/5^th Battalion the Royal Irish Rangers

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Prologue

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

      

       Chapter 7

      

       Chapter 8

      

       Chapter 9

      

       Chapter 10

      

       Chapter 11

      

       Chapter 12

      

       Chapter 13

      

       Chapter 14

      

       Chapter 15

      

       Chapter 16

      

       Chapter 17

      

       Chapter 18

      

       Chapter 19

      

       Chapter 20

      

       Chapter 21

      

       Chapter 22

      

       Chapter 23

      

       Epilogue

      

       OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES

      

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

      South Armagh, 3 July 1989

      The foot patrol moved quietly down the starlit street. There were four of them, forming a ‘brick’. They made up a single fire team. The point man kept his SA-80 assault rifle in the crook of his shoulder, eyes glinting in his darkly camouflaged face as he scanned surrounding windows, doors and alleyways.

      Behind the point came the fire team’s commander, a corporal. Hung on the left side of his chest was a PRC 349 radio. It had a range of only a few kilometres, but the patrol was not far from home. The corporal had the 349 set on whisper mode. Its twin microphones were strapped to his throat and he edged a finger in between them, silently cursing the way they irritated his skin.

      Behind the corporal came the gunner, armed with a Light Support