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

      Gilfillan stared at him with ill-disguised contempt. ‘Sure, this is a free country, is it not?’ he said. ‘What fucking business is it of yours where I’m going?’

      Carr leaned in past de Vere and rammed his gloved hand between Gilfillan’s legs.

      Grabbed his balls, and squeezed.

      Hard.

      ‘Answer the officer’s question, you RA cunt,’ he said, applying yet more pressure.

      The bomb-maker’s eyes were almost popping out of his head, and both his hands were on Carr’s wrist, trying in vain to pull him away.

      ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’

      Half an hour later, a chastened Gilfillan was finally allowed on his way, after apologising to Guy de Vere for his rudeness and watching the Paras conduct a thorough but fruitless search of his vehicle.

      ‘Never mind May I look in your boot please, sir, boss,’ said Carr, phlegmatically, as he watched the Marina disappear. ‘That’s how you handle cunts like him. You’re never going to make a friend of the fucker, so why bother trying?’

      De Vere nodded.

      Just then, a woman pushing a toddler in a buggy walked past.

      She didn’t break stride, or look at them, but out of the corner of her mouth she said, ‘You look after yourselves, lads. It’s a good job you’re doing.’

      Carr watched the young second lieutenant follow her with his eyes, and then the look of surprise which came over his face.

      ‘What?’ said Carr, eyebrows raised. ‘You think they all hate us?’

      ‘No,’ said de Vere. ‘Obviously not, but…’

      ‘We get a lot of that,’ said Carr, turning to look down the road, eyes sweeping for threats. ‘Most people here are no different to most people anywhere. They just want to live their lives, and they know us and the RUC’s the only thing stopping a massacre.’

      ‘Would it be that bad?’

      Carr looked at him with a face which said, Are you serious?

      ‘It’d be a bloodbath, boss,’ he said. ‘There’s not many of the bastards, but they’re some of the most evil people you’ll ever meet. On both sides.’ He paused, narrowing his eyes for a few moments at an old Ford Granada which was approaching, and then relaxing. ‘But don’t you worry. You’ll find all this out for yourself.’

8.

      MIDDAY. SICK SEAN and Gerard were sitting around the Casey family kitchen table with Ciaran O’Brien, a thickset man who smelt of sweat and old beer.

      The third team member, O’Brien was another hardened Republican from a long line of hardened Republicans stretching back to the 1600s, the Eleven Years’ War, and beyond.

      It was a way of life for some people.

      The three of them spoke in hushed voices, as if the breadbin might be bugged.

      Which, actually, it might be. You literally never knew, until the fuckers kicked the door in one day and dragged you away.

      The hard work, the reconnaissance and the planning, had been done.

      The weapons had been removed from the cache in Milltown Cemetery off the Falls by the hide custodian the previous night. He’d stripped, oiled and reassembled them, and moved them into a temporary location in the Poleglass, over Derriaghy way.

      The final weapons-move to the forming-up point – McKill’s, a well-known Republican bar on the Suffolk Road, out on the south-western outskirts of the city – would not take place until just before the Active Service Unit arrived to collect them. The less time the guns were in play, the better. To be caught with them was effectively a death sentence: many a good man had been killed by those murdering Brit bastards, even when he’d known the game was up and was trying to surrender.

      They’d collect their vehicle at McKill’s, too. A red Ford Sierra – the most common car, and the most common colour of that car, in the city. Stolen to order three weeks earlier, hidden away and fitted with ringer plates that went to an identical vehicle, so that it would at least pass any casual check by the peelers.

      If any of them got a little more nosey, all bets were off.

      Gerard Casey couldn’t sit still.

      He stood up and went out into the back garden to smoke the last of his twenty Red Band.

      ‘That’s a filthy habit,’ said Sick Sean, after him. ‘It’ll kill you.’

      He burst out laughing, but he was half serious: Sean Casey was a muscle nut gym monkey who lived on grilled chicken, salad, and handfuls of parabolin, winstrol, halotestin, and whatever other anabolic steroids he could get his hands on. Plus an occasional amphet sharpener.

      ‘Is he gonna be alright?’ said Ciaran O’Brien. ‘Your wee man?’

      He pronounced it ‘marn’.

      ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Sean, dismissively. ‘It’s a piece of piss.’

      They sat in easy silence for a few moments. The kitchen smelled of the stale chip pan, and O’Brien’s Blue Stratos aftershave. The only sound was the relentless tick of the plastic clock on the wall behind Sick Sean’s head.

      Ma Casey stuck her head in and said she was off to the Co-Op.

      Sean frowned and nodded curtly.

      She meant the pub. An hour or so, and she’d be drunk; two hours, and she’d be oblivious.

      Gerard came back into the warmth of the kitchen, rubbing his freezing hands together.

      ‘Let’s have another go through the plan,’ said Sean.

      ‘I know the plan,’ said his younger brother, sharply.

      ‘I didn’t fucking ask if you knew it, boy,’ spat Sean. His body had tightened and his fists were suddenly bunched. ‘I said let’s go through the fucking plan.’

      Gerard stopped in his tracks. When his brother was in this mood, you didn’t push his buttons unless you liked hospital food.

      ‘Listen, Gerard,’ said Sean. His voice was a little calmer, but his teeth were gritted. ‘Sitting here and talking about it, that’s the easy bit. The next easiest bit is killing the fucker. D’you know the hard bit?’

      Gerard nodded.

      ‘The hard bit’s not getting fucking caught and spending the next thirty years in Long Kesh. So let’s go over the fucking plan one more fucking time.’

      The younger man nodded again, a mental image of Billy Jones Jnr entering his head. The three of them had spent hours and hours over the last two months in surveilling their target, and by now he knew Billy’s face and his movements better than the back of his own hand. A week earlier, he’d even stood at the bar in Robinson’s and made sure to be served by Billy, so that he could see his face right up close, and really know the detail.

      He’d looked into the lad’s eyes, and had seen his own reflection.

      Seemed a nice enough guy, no different to himself.

      Don’t think like that.

      ‘He leaves Robinson’s at the end of his shift between six and six-thirty,’ he said. ‘He takes about ten minutes to get to the car park.’

      ‘What’s he wearing?’

      ‘Black trousers, white shirt, and he always has that red adi jacket on.’

      ‘Car’s he driving?’

      ‘Dark green Austin Allegro. W reg.’