Field of Blood by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online

pathetic . . . '
    `That's twisting what I said.'
    Ì'm telling you, once you feel sorry for them, then the next step is saying that if
    you'd been brought up in Turf Lodge that you'd be a terrorist, that sort of drivel.'
    Ì don't have to take that.'
    `What I'm telling you is this, you muttering about known terrorists looking pathetic doesn't exactly move along our war effort. They're vicious psychopaths,
    and recognizing that is the first step towards grinding them down.'
    `You know what ...?' Ferris flared. `That's precisely the attitude that has kept us
    here fifteen years, not winning ...'
    `They're vermin.'
    `They're human beings, and when we start realizing that we might stop losing.'
    `What utter shit ... If you weren't a damned good officer I'd see this conversation
    went further.'
    Ferris spun on his heel and slammed the door behind him on his way out.
    It was dark when he came home, and he had no front door key for his own house.
    He pressed the bell, he heard the shouts of the children inside, he heard the slither of his wife's slippers. The smell of soap was still on the palms of his hands from when he had sluiced away the traces of weapons oil.
    They had worked on the plan, they had taken him to a lock‐up garage where the
    R.P.G. was stored and he handled it and cradled it and checked the projectile, and after that they had taken him to a bar. He had been told to wash his hands.
    Two years ago it would have been second nature. He had flushed because he had
    had to be reminded.
    Roisin opened the door. He hurried past her. He was bursting. She followed him
    to the half‐closed door of the lavatory off the landing.
    `You just missed your Ma, she waited all afternoon for you. She says for you to go
    round tomorrow morning.'
    Ì'm out early tomorrow morning,' McAnally called over his shoulder, and pulled
    the chain.
    28

    There was 4 flatness in her voice, not approval and not criticism. `They talked you
    into doing what they want.'
    He was at the top of the stairs. He nodded. `They talked me.'
    32
    33
    **`You want me to wish you luck?'
    Ì want you to love me.'
    `You're jarred.' But she was smiling.
    `Love me.'
    `You'll get your love when the kids have had their tea, and washed, and are in their beds ... You'll get your love then.'
    He came down the stairs, loud and clumsy. He held his woman in his arms, and
    the strength with which he clung to her squeezed the grin from her cheeks.
    She kissed him under the ear and she whispered, `You'll go careful.' Ì told them it
    was a suicide plan. They didn't listen to me.' Her eyes were closed. Her face was
    hard against her man's. `Go careful, Gingy.'
    3
    There were three men with him, and the car was behind them against the wall of
    the backyards of the flats, its engine throbbing quietly and the exhaust fumes pouting from its tail. He didn't know the names of the men. He knew that one would drive and that two would ride shotgun with Armalite rifles. He knew that
    the mission was controlled by a Citizens' Band radio.
    It was raining. A dreary soft Belfast morning ... The rifles were on the back seat of the car, covered by a coat, loaded and cocked. The R.P.G. was in the boot of the
    car, laid diagonally because the projectile was attached and it had to be laid that
    way to fit inside.
    The CB radio would give him two minutes' warning. Two minutes to extract the
    launcher from the car, to drape the coat over it, to walk across Regent Street, to
    take up a position alongside the dark, derelict walls of the Methodist church, to
    look down busy Clifton Street at the, cars approaching the Carlisle Circus.
    He knew the target car would be a black Rover.
    The car would not be difficult to identify; the armour‐plating in the doors would
    weigh it down low on its wheels; sometimes, he had been told, they made it easier, the driver and the car's escort, by flashing the headlights of the Rover and the back‐up as they approached the roundabout.
    Shit ... blasting the car wasn't