A Darker Place by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

toward the milk truck. The driver had slipped from behind the wheel and was firing through the cab, where the passenger door was partially open. A bullet plucked Roper’s shoulder. He dropped down on his face and could see directly under the truck where the driver’s legs were exposed from the knees down. He held the Uzi out in front of him and fired two sustained bursts, the man screaming in agony and going back against the hotel wall.
    Roper found him there, sobbing. He tapped the muzzle of the Uzi against the face. “Where is it, in the cab?”
    “Yes,” the man groaned.
    “What kind? Pencil timer, detonators, or what?”
    “Go fuck yourself.”
    “Have it your own way. We’ll go to hell together.”
    He grimaced at the pain of his wounded arm, but managed to pull the man up and push him half into the cab. There was a large Crawford’s biscuit can. “You could get a Christmas cake in there or a hell of a lot of Semtex. Anyway, let’s try again. Pencil timer, detonator?”
    He turned the man’s face and pushed the muzzle of the Uzi between his lips. The man wriggled and jerked away. “Pencils.”
    “Let’s hope you’re right, for both our sakes.”
    He pulled off the lid and exposed the contents. Three pencils—the extras just to make sure. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. I’d better move sharpish.” He pulled them out and tossed them away and eased the man down as he fainted.
    People were emerging from the houses and the local bar, now a couple of dogs barked, and then there was a sudden roaring of engines as two of the jeeps appeared, moving fast.
    “Here we go, the bloody cavalry arriving late as usual.” He slid down on the pavement, his back to the hostel wall, scrambled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fumbled to get one out, and failed.
     
     
    IT DIDN’T MAKE him notable in any way beyond military circles. The national newspapers didn’t make a fuss simply because death and destruction were so much a part of everyday life in Northern Ireland that, as the old army saying went, it was old news before it was news. But the Portland Hotel a year later, the lone man face-to-face with a terrible death for nine hours, really was news, although the decision to reward him with the George Cross had still not been taken. He continued to meet the daily demands of his calling, working out of an old state school in Byron Street that the army had taken over on the safe house principle, fortifying it against any kind of attack, the many rooms providing accommodation for officers and men, with a bar and catering facilities. There were places like it all over Belfast, safe but bleak.
    Local women fought for the privilege of working there in the canteen, the laundry, or as cleaners. That many would be Republican sympathizers was clear, and a rough and ready way of sorting the problem was to try to employ only Protestant women. On the other hand, it was obviously a temptation for Catholics who needed work to pretend to be other than they were. Such women lived locally, and came and went through the heavily fortified gates with identity cards, often so false they could be bought for a couple of pounds in any local bar.
    Roper had been posted to Byron Street for nine months, and in that time had caused something of a stir with his Military Cross and good looks, but his gentlemanly behavior toward the younger women, which was conspicuously absent in his fellows, had provoked a suggestion that, as the local girls put it, there had to be something wrong with him.
    On the other hand, his incredible bravery was a fact, and another was that in those nine months, some of his comrades had paid the final price and others had been terribly injured.
    The Portland Hotel caused many people to look at him differently, as if there was something otherworldly about him, and there were those who felt uncomfortable in his presence, hurrying past him. One who did not was a new young cleaner who replaced an older