Leo didn’t have to be told twice where to meet. St Kevin’s Church was one of his ma’s favourite chapels. She used to get the bus there for the 10 a.m. mass several days a week.
Sitting at the back of the bus, staring out at people congregated outside a mosque, Leo considered the misery he had inflicted on her. While he was out breaking into houses, robbing women on the streets, she was in Kevin’s praying for him, praying for him not to die. That’s what she used to say to him when he was in the house, slumped in front of the television, after she came back, always clasping her small black handbag. One day, she left it on the hall table as she went into the kitchen to make them both tea. He had never taken from the house. Not until that day.
Leo closed his eyes. But he couldn’t block out the memories. Of what he did to his ma, and his da. He pressed the bell as the bus approached the church.
He dipped his hand into the holy water and blessed himself, a habit ingrained by his ma. He walked over to the far side and sat in the second last pew. That’s what a voice on a phone told him when he met his RCAD contact in a pub the other night. The contact handed him a phone and there was a voice at the other end telling him where they would meet, when, and where to sit.
Leo scanned the church. There were a handful of people, lighting candles, bent forward in prayer. There was another one or two scattered at the back. It was dark and brooding, like he remembered it. He checked his phone. Half nine. Bang on.
Hall looked at the laptop screens in front of him inside the van. One captured the front entrance and the road outside. A second covered a side entrance on another road. A third camera captured the road on the far side. Three mobile teams – two cars, one motorbike – were in position. They had another surveillance officer in the church.
‘9/2. Bait confirmed,’ said their man inside.
‘5/0 to 9/2. Over,’ said DI Slavin, seated beside Hall.
Behind them were two note-takers, documenting everything.
Good, Hall thought. Leo had sat where he was told by the Provos. The bug was in place and should capture any conversation.
The job was giving Hall the nervous shafts of raw adrenaline that he loved. Mixed in with the excitement was anxiety. He was most concerned about not blowing their cover and had directed everyone to play this one loose.
The meeting two nights ago between Leo and the RCAD in the pub had gone well. They couldn’t get ears on the conversation as it was arranged suddenly and was way too noisy. But Leo had remembered to repeat the details back in his room. And while they didn’t have ears on the meet, they had eyes. They got photos of the contact when he came out. Fintan Sutcliffe. An old Provo, active in the early eighties with the Concerned Parents Against Drugs and on the fringes in the mid-nineties with the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs, or COCAD.
Hall knew his face and it didn’t take long to jog his memory. Sutcliffe had dropped out of active republican circles in the late nineties. He was now touching sixty. He had nothing to do with the new breed in the Reals or Continuity. To veterans like him, they were just criminals. He had come out of retirement, voluntarily, Hall discovered. It turned out he’d lost his granddaughter about a year ago to drugs. The RCAD greeted him with open arms. Since the late nineties, local people wouldn’t go to community drug meetings. They were too terrified. But since the start of the year, the RCAD group was having local meetings across south-west Dublin and was beginning to attract a smattering of people. Sutcliffe and his like were wanted again.
The RCAD, it turned out, had links with a sister anti-drugs group in Belfast, manned, in part, by former members of the Provisional IRA. A so-called ‘military crew’ had reformed in Dublin, like in the days of COCAD. They operated behind the scenes and were the muscle for RCAD, if needed. The ISD’s Subversive Intelligence Unit was piecing together who Sutcliffe was associated with. A few knee-cappings, an old Provo favourite, had taken place recently around the canals, of street dealers mainly. There had also been a couple of armed robberies, which seemed to be well planned and executed. There were unconfirmed reports that serious firepower was being acquired with this money, to be used against the Canal Gang, if the opportunity arose. That was where, Hall predicted, Leo fitted into the RCAD plan. And the Canal Gang was already getting jumpy, if the attack on the junkie and his girlfriend over the drug haul was anything to go by.
‘9/3. Possible target on move. Wearing blue jeans, black jacket, cap.’
‘5/0 to 9/2. Be ready.’
Leo heard the rustle of clothes and feet adjusting to walk sideways into a pew behind him. He didn’t turn to look. He knew not to. Whoever it was sat behind him, slightly to his right. The man kneeled down and put his hands over his face as if in prayer. The man tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the seats on the other side of the church.
Leo hesitated. He got another tap, harder this time. He walked over, the man following. The man sat down behind him and leaned forward, his mouth centimetres from his ear. He had a peaked cap on, Leo could tell.
‘Take off your jacket. Push it down the seat.’
Leo obeyed. He had a T-shirt underneath, as he was told on the phone. He felt the guy tapping the top of the T-shirt, shoulders and chest, with his gloves. He then pressed his mouth against his ear again.
‘Go to Blades on Eamon Street,’ the man whispered. ‘Ask for a cover. Do it straight after this.’
Leo felt like his bowels were giving way, but held it together. The voice was the same as the one on the phone. Dublin accent, kind of neutral.
‘And start growing a beard.’
Leo twisted his head.
What does he want me growing a beard for? And what the fuck is a cover?
‘At training tomorrow,’ the man continued, ‘tell that Ghost what I said on the phone. You have to get them to meet you in person. The lot of them. Say you’ll be back at training on Tuesday for an answer.’
Leo nodded.
‘Stay put after Tuesday. We’ll have eyes on you. When you get back to the priest’s don’t fucking move. That means no trips for drugs, nothing. If you need cigarettes, get them before. When you do move, we’ll know it’s on.’
Leo was sweating buckets. The man had almost moved into his ear.
‘Don’t mention Blades to anyone. Or talk to anyone. If you do, I’ll inject a kilo of gear into your fucking eyes.’
Leo tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was lodged there. He gagged for air.
‘We’ll have no contact after this, no mobiles, no nothing. There’s a bicycle outside the entrance. Get on it and head to Eamon Street. Don’t stop for lights, trucks, the Luas, nothing. Just in case, like, anyone is following you. Yeah?’
Leo nodded.
‘If you fuck with us in any way, you won’t have a pretty end. Either will the priest.’
Leo sat there shitless, couldn’t even manage a nod.
‘Stay here for two minutes, then leave. Do not look around.’
Leo’s legs were bouncing up and down. He forced himself to stay put and not piss into his jocks.
‘9/2 to 5/0. Target leaving.’
‘5/0. All units ready to roll on exit.’
Hall told himself they were dealing with a serious outfit here. The counter-intelligence steps inside the church confirmed that. These guys were not taking chances. But at least they had the target on the cameras. The units were on the move.
‘Bait is getting on a bike,’ Slavin said, looking at camera three. ‘He’s legging it.’
‘We’ll catch up with Leo later,’ Hall said, glancing at the camera, wondering where the fucker was off to in such a hurry. ‘We need to concentrate everything on the target.’