Once A Pilgrim: a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller. James Deegan

      He looked at his driver, a young Cornish private called Shaun Morris.

      ‘This new rupert’s shitting himself, Shaun,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Long way from the playing fields of Eton.’

      ‘Where’s that?’ said Morris.

      ‘Never mind,’ said Carr.

      Up ahead, Parry was running through a final check, making sure everyone was on-board.

      Then he looked toward the men manning the gate.

      ‘Get it open,’ he shouted, and stepped into the vehicle, shutting the armoured door behind him.

      And then his driver put the vehicle into gear, and they all headed out through the gates.

4.

      IT’S A BIG THING, to kill a man in cold blood.

      So Gerard Casey had slept badly in the little back bedroom in the terraced house in Lenadoon Avenue, a mile or two distant from Whiterock.

      He’d woken up at 5am in the middle of some kind of sweating nightmare, and since then he’d been sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the red digits on his clock radio move slowly onwards.

      Nearly six now.

      He sparked up another Red Band and grimaced as he sucked down a lungful of cheap, bitter smoke.

      Right leg jiggling on the frayed carpet.

      Sure, you’ll be fucking fine, Gerry, Sean had said, a day or two earlier. The first time’s the hardest. But after that it gets easy.

      His older brother, ‘Sick Sean’ Casey. An Active Service Unit member, a soldier in A Company in the 1st Battalion of the Provisional IRA’s grandly-titled ‘Belfast Brigade’, and a proven and tested killer.

      Gerard stared at the U2 poster hiding the peeling woodchip paper on the wall opposite.

      Bono, in that fucking silly hat and them fucking silly shades.

      I can’t close my eyes and make it go away, either.

      Guts churning, he stubbed the fag out in the loaded Harp ashtray on his little bedside table and stood up, pulling the grey kecks out of his arse.

      Went to his chest of drawers and took out a pair of jeans.

      He looked down at his hands. They were shaking slightly.

      ‘Get a grip,’ he said to himself. ‘Fucking twelve hours yet.’

      He put the jeans back and selected another, older pair.

      He’d be burning every scrap of clothing on his body later on, and he didn’t want to be getting rid of his only pair of 501s.

      The old Wranglers, they could go.

      He bent down, stepped into them, and pulled on a plain black T-shirt.

      Looked out his bedroom window.

      Four days to Christmas, and there were trees and lights in half the front windows in the street.

      Across the rooftops he could see the raised security tower of Woodbourne police station.

      Things had been different in the area since the Paras had taken over. Those bastards didn’t fuck around, and God help you if a patrol caught you late at night. They’d kicked the shit out of one of the main players the other week, put him in hospital good and proper. Then they’d spray-painted the wall of his house with 3 PARA WE OWN THE NIGHT.

      The police had done fuck all about it, even though an official assault complaint had been put in.

      The peelers laughed about it, so they did. He’d heard talk of it in the Davitts.

      Treat us like second-class citizens, so they fucking do.

      He looked at the tower and shivered, and for a moment he had an eerie feeling that he was being watched.

      He shook his head.

      Paranoia.

      Better get used to that, Gerry.

      He was brought back to reality with the banging of a fist on the front door.

      A second later, another bang.

      Louder this time.

      ‘Would you ever piss off!’ yelled Gerard’s mother, from her pit down the landing.

      ‘It’s alright, ma,’ shouted Gerard. ‘It’s just Sean.’

      His mother said something muffled and angry, the hangover making her head thump, but Gerard had already cracked open his window.

      ‘Stop banging the fucking door,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

      In the dawn-dark street below stood Sean, hopping from foot to foot, blowing on his hands, dressed for the cold.

      Sean was Gerard’s way in to the RA.

      His recruiting sergeant.

      He wanted it, did Gerry. He wanted to be a Republican foot soldier, like Sean.

      He wanted the respect, the attention, the name.

      The women.

      Who hardly gave him a second glance, now, but would be all over him like a rash once he made his bones.

      But he also knew that he was crossing a line.

      Right here, right now, he was just another wee civvie standing in his back bedroom.

      By the time he was back in this room tonight he’d have crossed over into another world, a world from which there was no way back.

      He felt anxious.

      The paranoia was back.

5.

      AT EXACTLY THE MOMENT that Gerard Casey opened his window, another alarm clock sounded.

      This one was on a cheap Formica bedside table, next to the head of a young man in a very similar bedroom, in an all-but identical terraced house, about five miles distant as the crow flies.

      Only five miles, but Northland Street was a world away from Lenadoon Avenue. It might as well have been a different country, and in a way it was: to get there, you’d to wade through rivers of blood.

      The young man in Northland Street – William ‘Billy’ Jones – opened one eye, clicked off the alarm clock, and groaned.

      He was glad of the money that came with his recent promotion, but he missed the extra couple of hours’ kip.

      Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he half-rolled, half-fell out of bed and onto his knees.

      From there, he stood up and stumbled into the bathroom for a piss, and then stumbled back to his bedroom to pull on his uniform.

      Black trousers, white shirt.

      He fished a badge saying ‘Assistant Manager’ from his trouser pocket, and pinned it on his chest.

      Stifling a yawn, he crept slowly downstairs to the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as possible.

      His da’ would have been out with the boys until the wee small hours, and he was not a man to annoy when he was hungover, his da’.

      Not a man to annoy at any time: Billy Jones Senior was a leading commander in the Ulster Volunteer Force, and a violent man with a hair-trigger temper and a light-heavyweight’s physique. He wasn’t shy of using his hands, even now his son was twenty.

      Billy Senior was a dyed-in-the-wool bigot, for whom the only good Catholic was a dead one. Billy Junior bore no such hatred. He’d flatly refused to get involved with the UVF, and Billy Senior